The Dreams of Shadows
by GrizzlyBiscuit
Summary: ElHazard and Tenchi crossover, Two humans transported to live out a normal life end up being entangled by powers beyond Gods mercy in a war that never should have been
1. Prologue

The story that you are about to read here is one that takes place on the world of El-Hazard, though told without the traditional Makoto, Fujisawa, or any characters related to earth in any way, shape, or form. All Native Characters of El-Hazard (i.e. priestesses of Mt. Muldoon, Lans, Princess Rune, ect.) have been used for this story.

Also to be noted upon that several characters from Tenchi Muyo series of Animation have been taken from their respected worlds and used in this story as well.

It is to be noted here that this is to be the full story that I had written out long ago, of the antics, trials, and eventually living hell of the possessor of The Armor of Darkness and those who will travel with him.

The only characters that are not trademarked by their respected owners is are Tom, Jason, Joshaldan (who will not show until later in the story), Nazak, The Armor of Darkness, and few others not mentioned here.

The first two chapters and the prologue will not have anything to do with El-Hazard, Tenchi Muyo series, or anything else with either series. After Chapter Three will the world be introduced and the stories immersed into.

It took 100 views, so let's hope this story gets as many if not more .


	2. Chapter One

**PROLOGUE**

**(2027 A. D.) 24 A. T.**

In the vastness of space, there exists many people, not just earthlings who arrogantly think that they are the only ones in the universe. In actuality, there are many of races out in the vastness of the universe that are not all that different. These beings live either together or they fight against each other, yet look almost alike.

There are those that look human in both appearance and action who have no known special ability to use except their own ingenuity. There are those that have human appearance but have abilities that are naturally imbued in their genetics that may separate them from others because of mistrust and suspicion of the unknown. There are also those that live out in the dark recesses of space that look partially human or, as in some cases, not human in any sense of the word.

In one dark corner of space, there exists a race of people who know what true evil and malevolence truly is. They were recently released by a motley crew of people that had traveled from their own homes for their own reasons to destroy their dark oppressor. Now they are revered as heroes to these people. Not because of what they had done for them, but for what they had left behind in their wake.

In a small farming village on the outskirts of a deep forest, the people prepare for a festival that they thought would never come. It is a festival of life, but most importantly, of friendship and camaraderie. Once a year, people from the outlying farms around the village come together to renew old ties and to make new ones with relatives and friends. It is also the time when the most ancient of them comes from his forest hideaway and tells one story. It is the story of how the people came to befriend the space travelers who would later become the heroes of the legends…

He walked out from under the tree branches of the forest and gazed down upon the town he had come to love. It wasn't like any town form his old world, broken wood frames, clothes and clothing hanging to dry on clothes lines, and not a piece of machinery anywhere near except for the tills and the share plows. He took a deep breath of the morning air and coughed harshly at the sudden pain in his chest. It had been a long time since his old wound had flared to become anything but a remembrance. Rubbing at the problem spot, he raised his left arm above his head as his wound began to calm down again.

Several bones and joints protested profusely at the abnormal movement and popped or cracked their complaint to the old man. He groaned anew at the complaint of his body and mumbled to himself as he loosened his joints up. There were a few more complaints put in at various areas at his body, but were soon moving as they always did. His left hand combed back a few errant strands of hair from his face and he scratched at his beard before sighing to himself in resignation.

"I'm not as young as I used to be." The man spoke to himself. He then thought about what he had just said and snorted. "Can't believe I just said that." he said with a sad mutter.

Shaking his head in rue, he continued on his way into the village below using an old walking stick he had made himself. It had come from a fallen tree that he had stumbled upon and had chosen to put to use in aiding his faltering old step. In the village, the signs of life were already in evidence around the village. Food was in the preparation of being made and the men were already gone to tend to their fields. Some of the women folk could be seen through a window or out in their small yards being assisted by the younger girls who were about to become women and preparing to start a life of their own.

He made his way toward the center of town to where the younger children had already gathered around an old rocking chair that was made of the same wood as his stick. He made his introductions to them in his usual fashion.

"Get the hell out of my way and get out of my chair!" The old man bellowed.

The children scattered in all directions and hid behind carts and baskets near the houses, even the platform that the villagers had erected for this special occasion. Although he muttered as he shuffled toward the chair, he was chuckling to himself inside and smiling behind his graying beard. Sitting down in the rocking chair unceremoniously, he harrumphed loudly and began to situate himself better. The sound of snoring soon came from him as the rocker began its slow motion of back and forth.

The children peeked outward from their hiding positions to look at the invader that had taken their fun from them. The old man wore a black, full body robe that concealed his features and a hood was pulled over his face. He looked frail at first glance, but the children had all heard the miracle things that he could perform. There were many stories of him flying in the air and some others of him being able to move very fast and to be very strong.

There were also stories of him eating children out in the middle of his forest and of the strange sounds that came from it, of howling creatures that were made of the very shadows and were defiant to the sun. Even stories of beings and ghosts from another plane of existence who stole the wicked and the weak and stories of offworlders who stole whole villagers and of the old man guiding all of them to the people for slavery and power.

Of course none of it could ever be proven and their village had never been taken off in the night so obviously some of it was wrong. Still the suspicion remained and the children thought of this old man as evil incarnate. They approached the sleeping old man in his rocking chair carefully, tiptoeing close enough to the old man to look under his hood. His eyes were closed and his breathing was deep and quiet giving the impression that the man slept; yet they still did not trust him.

A little girl of around the age of 15 approached the closest to the man this year and checked under his hood for the others. She had been privy to this act for 9 years and knew what to expect from this old man. Her ragged brown dress swished slightly as she edged close enough to the man to see underneath the hood and look into her face. Her piercing gray eyes searched into the man's face observing the etched lines and the pale skin that composed his features. His eyes were closed and he was breathing softly and slowly, but she still had the feeling that the old man was watching her even now in this dormant state.

She waved one of the curious over to her side to gaze at the perpetrator and let them draw their own ideas of what the old man was like. One by one, they gathered around the man and quietly looked into his face as their fear slowly crawled away to let curiosity take it's place. The girl who had first stared into the man's face stared for a second at him as if she could divine the future from his face when the sound of wood hitting against each other made all but the girl run for cover.

The stick that the old man had held had either been knocked from its upright position or had been dropped from the old man's lax grasp while he slumbered. All of the children except her scurried for their previous hiding places when the wooden stick had fallen to the floor. Picking up the wooden staff, she replaced it under the old man's hand and stood back from him for a second. She took another second to stare at all of him this time when she was suddenly pulled off the platform by a very large hand.

"Whar' the infernal hav' ya been hidin' at, ya rat?" The drunken voice slurred.

"I have been here the entire time, Father." The girl replied quickly. "I never went anywhere else like I was told."

The drunken man looked confused for a second. "I tol' ya it was a'right to be ofer here?"

"Yes'm, father." The girl answered as she thought quickly. "I was told to come here and listen to the old man's stories until he finished. I was then supposed to go back to the house and take care of the chores you are going to give me later."

The drunk scratched his head in confusion for a second then belched loudly and said, "I've changed ma mind. Git on home an' do what yer s'pposed to do now, Caira."

"I don't want her to go." A firm voice said.

The drunk looked around in confusion for a second before bellowing "C'mon out here an show yerself, ya bum! No one talks ta me that way!"

"I'm over here," the firm voice said again as the old man stood up, "If you think you can stumble over that far."

The drunken man's face turned to the old man's direction. With a mighty roar, the drunk began to barrel at the old man in a drunken rage. The old man had gotten a foothold on his staff and had somehow managed to flip it up into his hands as the drunk bore down on him. The drunk attempted to grab hold of the old man in a bear hug as he lunged at him.

"Run and get the mayor, dear?" The old man asked as he dodged out of the man's grasp. Her father fell to the floor in front of the old man with a resounding thwump while the girl stared on at the sight. She feared for the man's safety but she also feared for her father and what he might do in his inebriated state. Taking one last look at her father and the old man, she quickly hurried off in search of the mayor or a member of the council.

"Now then," the old man began, "what seems to be your problem with your daughter, Vassiv?"

"It'sh no concern of yurs, ya hairy ol' geezer!" the man said as he slowly picked himself off the ground. "I'll raise ma daughter Th' way I wanna and no other person will say otherwise!"

He grabbed for something at his waist and made a wild swing with the object toward the old man's chest. The sound of cloth ripping made the old man jump backwards and to the right of his chair. Feeling at his chest, the frayed edges of his robes and a scratch on his skin were evidence enough to know the drunk had become a threat.

"Vassiv, you are scaring the children around here. Drop the blade or I will have to drop you." The old man snarled at the drunk.

"I tol' ya, old man!" The drunk snarled back. "I don' give a flying rat's butt about these damn brats! They can go back to Tokimi for all I care! No one will take my daughter from me like those bastards took my wife!"

The mayor appeared as Vassiv attacked the old man, lunging with the knife aimed at the old man's heart. Both the old man and Vassiv went down in a pile and they rolled together across the expanse of the raised platform, even knocking the rocker from off the platform itself. Then the rolling finally stopped with the old man laying on top of Vassiv's still form. The old man sat up with pain in his face and spoke down at Vassiv's still form.

"You poor, sad man." He said. "Why did it have to come to this, you poor fool?"

Both the mayor and the daughter, Caira rushed over to the previous combatants to find out who had won and how badly they were hurt. The mayor got to the old man's side and tried to prevent the daughter from looking at her father, but she got past him anyway. The dagger had been driven through the old man's hand during the rolling around, but that wasn't the worst part. The dagger had still been driven, with the old man's hand still on it into the throat of Vassiv killing him in a slow suffocating death. Air bubbles still seeped outward from Vassiv's throat as his last breath was slowly leaked from his slitted throat.

* * *

It was a good deal later when everyone had been informed about the accident and the attempted calming of the deceased Vassiv before the mayor and the old man finally were able to talk in private. 

"I feel awful for the child." The mayor said.

"I know what you mean, my friend." The old man replied as he rubbed his bandaged hand. "I just wish my herbs could heal the dead as well as they can heal my hand."

"If they could, I would tell everyone so that accidents never take our loved ones again." The mayor sighed sadly. "The poor dear," he said as he stared over at the girl in question, "Losing both her parents even before she becomes a woman."

The old man stared at her in contemplation for a long while before finally saying, "I wish to raise her."

The mayor looked at the old man in surprise. "You wish to raise Caira yourself? Only your stories could be more unbelievable, Kalesh."

"I'm very serious, my friend." The old man said to the mayor. "I feel I owe her something more than I can ever pay her. I want to start paying off the debt as soon as possible by raising her to adulthood as her adopted father."

"Kalesh, Vassiv's death was an accident." The mayor countered. "You shouldn't talk like that about her as if it were your fault. We'll let her live one of the other family's in the village until she becomes old enough to be an adult"

Kalesh turned to face the mayor and told him to his face, "I will raise her to be an adult at my house and I will be her father."

The mayor scratched his thinning brown hair and came to a decision. "All right, Kalesh. I'll consent to your taking care of her if she wants to live with you. You have until the festival is over."

"Agreed." Kalesh said to the mayor and shook his hand. "The festival starts in four days and ends three days later. Within one week it will be finished, one way or the other." Kalesh turned his gaze toward Caira as she sat in his rocking chair and stared hate at the man she suspected killed her father. "I will also take her father with me to the forest and bury him in privacy. It might be best for everyone this way."

The mayor nodded. "I'll get a few hands to help get the body to the site for you."

Kalesh shook his head and looked at the covered form of the dead. "Once you get me a small cart, I will take Caira and a shovel with me and bury him myself. I need no assistance."

The mayor was about to make protest when Kalesh turned his storm gray eyes at the mayor. Feeling like he was being reprimanded without anyone saying anything, the mayor agreed and gestured for the cart and the shovel. Kalesh walked over to the dead body and lifted it off the ground without a grunt or even the slightest hint of weakness. He carried Vassiv's body over to the cart and laid him gently into the small cart while Caira slipped out from the chair and walked over to Kalesh.

"Where are you taking my father, old man?" Caira demanded harshly.

"I am taking your father to a peaceful place." Kalesh answered, then looked at her. "You will follow me to say goodbye to him." It was not a suggestion.

Taking the handles for the cart from a young man, Kalesh began to take Vassiv to his home in the forest. Caira followed all the way up to the edge of the forest and stopped. Kalesh neither acknowledged her nor did he stop as he continued into the woodland.

"What are you going to do to him here, old man?" Caira questioned Kalesh critically.

Kalesh never answered and never stopped to answer as he continued onward toward the deeper forest. About to lose sight to the forest, Caira rushed toward the cart and Kalesh as they trundled forward. She never gave Kalesh the slightest hint of fear, but she was deathly scared of this place. Having her father near her in this forest, she began to believe the stories of the dead being brought back to serve this evil man. If it came down to it, she would prevent this evil man from resurrecting her father any way she could.

They continued to walk in silence as the sounds of the forest washed over to them from out in the limbs and even the trees themselves. Kalesh would turn his head in the direction of a bird or even the creaking of a tree as the wind caused it to sway in the breeze, but he never lost the serious look in his eyes. It was as if Kalesh felt as if he were hunted by some beast that was very dangerous and wasn't afraid to admit it. If something could scare or even hurt the man, Caira wanted to be around to see that. Turning around to see the path behind them, she found that the forest concealed the path back as well as it did forward.

The trees ahead soon pulled away to reveal a small farmhouse with an even smaller garden. Kalesh stopped long enough to whistle toward the house before he began to go behind the house. In back, there was a headstone engraved with a name in some unknown language that Caira had never seen before. Kalesh put the back end of the cart down and took the shovel out as he asked Caira a question.

"What kind of tree did your father like?" he asked.

"What?" Caira asked, caught off guard by Kalesh's question.

"I asked what kind of tree did your father like." Kalesh said again.

"An ironwood tree." Caira answered, then immediately asked, "What are you going to do to him?"

"I'm going to bury your father under an ironwood tree." Answered Kalesh as he walked over to the tree nearest to the stone marker.

"Good luck, old coot." Caira snapped at Kalesh while he put his hand on the trunk of the tree. "There has never been an ironwood tree in this entire forest."

"There is now." Kalesh said as the tree began to change underneath his hand.

The bark began to form in a rougher coating all along the tree. The limbs began to stunt and change from long flowing limbs to shorter, harder versions. The leaves previous green color also changed to a metallic gray and became heavier, barely hanging on the limb. Within a few minutes, the tree had changed from a forest tree to that of an ironwood tree on the rocky slopes of the mountains.

Taking a deep sigh, Kalesh shook his head in irritation and said to Caira as he lifted the shovel, "Cover your face, child. This is about to get messy."

Caira covered her face with her arms and turned from the old man with more fear in her than she thought possible. The dirt bits began flying into her with a stinging bite before she was prepared for them. It was quickly over and she waited an extra few seconds before she dropped her arms and turned to address Kalesh fiercely. The words died in her throat as she watched Kalesh climb out of the person size hole he had just dug within seconds.

Kalesh caught her staring at him then looked back at the hole. "Do you think it's big enough?" He asked.

Caira couldn't believe what she had seen. A tree changed at his touch and now he creates a hole by blasting the ground with some inscrutable ability. He was as evil a person as could possibly be, if he was a person at all. Kalesh merely chuckled at the expression on Caira's face and continued over to Vassiv. Leaning the shovel against the side of the cart, Kalesh gently picked up Vassiv's corpse and began to hum a very sad tune.

As he hummed, Caira felt a wave of sadness well up inside of her and felt the first of the hot tears begin to roll down her face. Kalesh jumped into the hole without hesitation and within seconds, jumped back out of the hole. He quickly dusted himself off and motioned for Caira to come over and say goodbye to her father. She walked over to the edge of the hole and stared downward as Kalesh continued to hum.

"Why did you have to bring the knife, father?" Caira thought to herself. "Why did you have to try to fight while you were still drunk?"

She stared at her dead father as if she could get some kind of answer out of his body then turned away and walked back to the cart silently sobbing to herself. There was a sound of the wind behind her and then Kalesh stopped humming. He walked past her and put the shovel down in the cart then continued toward the house.

"Aren't you even going to bury him, you monster?" Caira screamed at Kalesh.

He stopped and turned to face her then said, "He's buried and given the proper respect. What more would you want me to do for him?"

She turned back toward the grave and was about to retort that he lied when she noticed that the ground had indeed been put back into the grave and padded down. She turned to face the old man, her face showing terror and dread as the old man continued to walk back to the house.

"What are you, old man?" She questioned with a tinge of fear.

"I'm just a very tired, very misunderstood old man." Kalesh said with a voice filled with fatigue. "I am a storyteller and an outsider. I am also you're surrogate parent now so come inside and eat something when you're ready." He disappeared inside quickly after that.

Caira didn't come inside for another hour, which gave Kalesh a little time to recover what strength he had left. He hadn't lifted someone that heavy in a very long time and it had taken its toll on his body. He had made a stew and taken some bread from a cupboard then placed two bowls on his sparse table before sitting down in a chair and waiting for her. She had to be hungry from not eating anything yet didn't let her hunger control her actions.

She peeked around the doorframe and into the house before she inched herself into the building. Staring around and the interior, there was the table that Kalesh sat at, a small stove, two cupboards, and a second door into the rest of the house. Everything appeared to be made of the same time of wood but looked so old as to wonder what type of tree he had butchered to make his small furnishings. Smelling the food, she heard her stomach suddenly roar with hunger and blushed.

"I see that at least you're body knows what you need most." Kalesh said from his seat.

Caira sniffed at him and what she thought about his comment but still walked over to the table and sat herself down. They ate in uncomfortable silence letting it stretch on until they finished. As Caira attempted to get up and take the bowls and spoons away, Kalesh waved her back into the chair and gathered up the used utensils. He began washing them immediately still not talking to the girl and her in turn not talking to him either.

"Mreeow." Came the sound of something from inside the house.

Caira eyed the door leading into the house suspiciously while Kalesh called out, "I'm back here, Ryo-Ohki."

Caira quickly glanced at Kalesh then stared back at the door and waited for the creature to appear. She didn't have long to wait as a little brown furball came bounding into the room and jumped onto the table in one huge hop. It sat back onto its haunches and stared at Caira for a second before it scented the air near her. Caira, who had just witnessed Kalesh call to it, was a bit unnerved at the prospect of it being his pet monster.

"Here you are Ryo-Ohki, three carrots just the way you like them." Kalesh said as he laid the carrots down in front of it.

"Meeow meeow!" It called happily as it began to feast on the offered greens.

"Ryo-Ohki's an old friend of mine from long ago." Kalesh began to explain. "As you can see, it looks like a cross between a cat and a rabbit. Ryo-Ohki's probably a lot smarter than me and can understand us. She also has a few other talents that aren't important right now."

The brown furry creature continued in contentment while Kalesh went back to finishing up the dishes. Caira watched the cat/rabbit hybrid continue eating with curiosity. She stretched outward to reach the creature in question when it looked up from its meal to stare at her with luminous golden eyes. It bit into its meal and carried it over onto Caira's lap where it continued to feast. She smiled kindly at it and scratched gently behind its ears while it ate.

"Caira," Kalesh asked to the girl, "What do you think about Ryo-Ohki?" He continued to wash the dishes as Caira debated the question.

"I think that Ryo-Ohki is a very kind and peaceful creature." Caira answered as Ryo-Ohki finished its meal. It yawned quite loudly for its size and sent itself to sleepy land in Caira's lap.

"And what do you think of me?" Kalesh said to Caira as he dried his hands on the front of his robe and turned around to face her.

"I think that you are more of a beast than this sweet creature is!" Caira said harshly and very angrily.

Kalesh sat down across from Caira and nodded at her as he placed his hands on the table in front of her. "Would you believe me if I told you that inside the small form of Ryo-Ohki is the ability to change its shape into a destructive force called a spaceship?"

Caira stared at Kalesh in disbelief and then stared down at the creature on her lap. A firm look came across her face as she came to a decision.

"I don't believe you, old man." Caira said firmly. "Even if you told me the truth, I still wouldn't believe you."

"Then how about I can heal from any wound inflicted upon my body and can move faster than sight?" Kalesh offered.

"I told you." Caira said without hesitation. "I don't believe you, old man."

Kalesh nodded at her then pulled out the dagger that had pierced his hand earlier out from the folds of his robes. Placing his good hand flat on the table, he drove the dagger with his other hand through his hand on the table. Caira was so shocked that she merely stared at the impaled hand in horror for a few seconds before she realized what he had done to himself. The old man didn't even scream as he had done the act and didn't try to pull the dagger free.

"Looks like we'll be able to see first hand if I can or not." Kalesh said with a little pain laced in his voice.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" Caira gasped at Kalesh as she attempted to pull the dagger out of his hand.

Kalesh didn't answer as Caira worked on the dagger. He had driven the dagger so hard into his hand that it had become imbedded into the table underneath. Grabbing both the hilt and Kalesh's hand, she wiggled both back and forth until the dagger came loose from the table. Once loose, Caira became hesitant as to how to pull the dagger out without seriously hurting his hand anymore.

"It would be quicker if you did this." Kalesh commented casually as he took the damaged hand back from Caira and slammed the dagger point back into the wood, dislodging the dagger from his flesh and leaving his hand to bleed profusely.

He held his hand up and stared through it with one eye at Caira as the hand mysteriously began to stretch together and complete what had been damaged before. He held it out for Caira's inspection, which she didn't do without a long look at it first. Hesitant at first, once she had tapped Kalesh's fully formed handed and assured herself it wasn't an illusion, she began to hold and feel the newly formed hand. It felt very cold to the touch and it looked as if it were dead being all pale white as it was.

"How is this…?" Caira began to ask then she took the dagger and slashed herself across the back of her right hand.

Kalesh quickly grabbed her hand in both of his and a blue aura leapt into being around his hands. Kalesh stifled a gasp of pain before letting go of her hand and sitting back into his own chair holding his right hand in pain.

Caira looked at her right hand and saw that there was no blood on her hand anymore, nor was there a wound. "How can you do that?" Caira asked in wonderment.

Kalesh licked at the back of his own hand at the wound he had taken from Caira before answering. "I received a gift from one of the heroes who came to this planet long ago. He gave unto me the power to regenerate flesh should any wound befall me. The curse to that is much worse." Kalesh seemed sad at the answer to her question.

"Then why didn't you heal my father when you had the chance?" Caira demanded Kalesh. "Why didn't you save my father when he took the dagger in his throat?"

Kalesh looked sadly at her and said, "I can heal almost any wound and I can also cure others of any disease or wound. The one thing I wish I could cure was death." Kalesh shook his head sadly as a tear escaped his right eye, his eyes pinched closed with remembrance. "How I so wish that I could save the dying!"

Ryo-Ohki jumped up into Kalesh's lap and mewled in condolence or maybe in joined sadness. Caira knew not what it was but it was obvious that she had not been around at the time of the incident. She came up with a subject to quickly distract Kalesh from his memories.

"Kalesh," she began, "would you please tell me about the legendary heroes?"

Kalesh wiped his eyes on his sleeve before he looked at Caira. "Do you mean to tell me that you never heard of the legendary heroes?" Caira shook her head. "I should smack senseless the person who is teaching these kids today." Kalesh made the sound of clearing his throat as he shook his head then asked Caira, "Do you know anything about the heroes?"

"I was only told that they were all friends and they had come to our planet to save us from the evil." Caira said honestly.

Kalesh snorted. "For that answer, I will find whoever educated you and smack them fiercely. In actuality, they argued a lot and there even times where they fought openly for each other's affections. Sometimes, it looked like they were helping the enemy or betraying their friends for their own purposes. But it was true that they fought together and in some cases even loved together."

"Then how did they know they needed to gather together?" Caira asked in confusion.

"It all started a long time ago on a planet called Earth." Kalesh began as his eyes started to mist over in memory. "A young man was trying to escape from people who were out to kill him…


	3. Chapter Two

It's Official. The First chapter of Dreams of Shadows, guess I'm officially kicking this thing off here. I think I previously mentioned that the first few chapters do not take place on the world of El-Hazard, but if I didn't, now you know. One major character is being introduced at first, but the rest will arrive eventually.

I ask forgiveness now for spelling errors or the paragraphs don't feel exactly flush together. This was something I idled on for a long time, mainly writing my thoughts down with no direct cohesion.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything save my sanity, all places, dates, times have no correlation with reality.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**The Beginning of**

**A Fated Journey**

* * *

**2003 A.D. Nevada**

His blue Buick wasn't supposed to go this fast out in the middle of the desert at night. Still, He pushed it onward to its top speed or faster. He couldn't tell anymore since the speedometer had broken about a mile back, but he hoped it was faster than his enemies. Glancing in his rear view mirror, He could see the headlights of his pursuers continuing after him. It seemed that they hadn't fallen behind as he first thought. If anything, they were even closer than they had been a mile back.

The high pitch sound of the bullets being fired from his pursuers made him duck his head several times as the bullets ripped up what was left of his little car. Trying to swerve as much as he could, it was a wild ride of being almost killed and almost wrecking. A wave of Deja' vu swept over him as he hit a small bump in the desert sand. A black cowboy hat in hand, he swerved hard to the right as a coyote came into view. Avoiding the animal but not the marksman, the front left tire was shot out and the car began an uncontrolled roll over.

In a last ditch effort to save his own hide, he grabbed hold of the door handle and pulled hard. The speed of his flips sent him flying into the air and out into the frozen desert air. He landed hard on his shoulders and continued to roll through, holding to a ball form until he came to a complete stop on his own. Once stopped, he rolled over onto his stomach and played dead until he could see straight again. He heard the three jeeps pull up to what was left of his wrecked car and hoped he was not easily visible at his current position.

"Search the wreckage thoroughly." One of the men ordered. "Make sure that the man is dead or dying."

Glancing up from his position, the man in question checked to make sure his enemies weren't seeing him. The military personnel circled and prodded at the wrecked, burning vehicle as he watched. Quickly giving the vehicle and the terrain a quick once over, they returned back to the lead jeep and reported what they had found. The scientist who was sitting in the rear of the vehicle was not thrilled about the answer.

"What do you mean, 'you can't locate the boy?" The scientist screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Just what we said, sir. The boy is not in or around the wreckage." One of the military men said. The other four were dressed and looked the same but did not speak as the first one did.

"That is not acceptable." The scientist said in a condescending tone of voice. The look he gave the guard was anything but pleasant.

"What are your orders, sir?" The military man questioned again.

The scientist seemed to think about it for a second then spoke aloud, "Let's see. What should we do next?" Then the scientist made a surprised looked and said, "How about we try this first." He reached into his clean white lab coat and pulled out an object then pointed it at the guard.

The sound of a quick bang and the lurching form of the guard who spoke told the man what had happened. The guard slumped to the ground almost instantly while the scientist put the gun away in his lab coat.

"Now then," the scientist said as if finishing up unsavory business, "Shall we continue looking for the man who has found our base that shouldn't exist, or should we take the advice of the man who I have just relieved from duty?"

All of the military men quickly saluted the scientist and began the search again with even greater scrutiny to detail. Not wasting another moment, the man they were hunting for began to scuttle away from his place on the ground toward the deeper darkness of the desert. Crawling for at least thirty minutes, he stopped to listen to his surroundings first before picking himself up off the ground and dusting himself off. He looked back for any forms looking in his general direction before heading off for the lights of the city ahead.

He thought to himself as he began his walk, "Jason's going to be upset with me for not showing up on time again."

* * *

Jason had been sitting at this café in the middle of nowhere for almost two and half-hours now and he was really becoming very upset, not to mention concerned. Tom had not arrived like he said he would and it had really been way too long for his check in too. He shifted his 300-lbs. girth to look out the window and wait for tom a little longer. The jean jacket he brought hung over the chair he sat in near the window briefly crossed his mind as he was debating to go searching for his lost friend. He gazed out the window at the desert outside and wondered if something had happened that might of kept his friend from reaching the café on time. 

The café waitresses wondered if the man was finally going to leave. He had been sitting at that seat since the diner opened and had rarely even moved from his seat for any reason. One waitress in particular, a 5'4" women with red hair and an efficient air around her, had been taking care of the man and had gotten out of him that he was waiting on his friend. It seemed that the man had been waiting for his friend who had disappeared into the desert last night. He had promised to show up here at the diner and the man seemed adamant about him going to show up.

Instead of the man in which he had been waiting for, two military M.P.s walked through the door. They glanced around at the room to find the people in the room, identify hostile targets, and dismissed everyone almost immediately. They walked over to the waitress and spoke in a very brisk, very military manner.

The medium aged military man spoke for them. "We are looking for a Ms. Wanda smith. You will direct us to her or bring her out immediately." The younger M.P. kept his eyes scanning the room for anyone who was trying to leave or any surprises about to happen while his partner conferred with the waitress.

"That's me," the waitress answered with confusion creasing her face, "What do you need me for?"

"We have been ordered by Doctor Meyer to bring you back to the compound earlier than usual." The elder man quickly explained. "There was an intruder last night that got all the way to the gates before he was seen. He may have gotten inside or not, but Meyer doesn't want to take that chance since he got away from the hunters last night."

The man at the table turned his head to look at the M.P. when he said the last part. He had a look of confusion or something very near the same.

"And I supposed Meyer went with them and had a tirade when they couldn't find them." The waitress said as she pinched at the bridge of her nose.

"They were relieved of their positions shortly after they came back to the base." The M.P. Said in an almost cold tone.

Wanda stared at the M.P. critically before shaking her head and muttering something to herself. "All right." The woman finally said after a stretch of silence, "Let me get my things and I'll be with you immediately."

"Sorry ma'am." The M.P. said as he took hold of Wanda's shoulder. "He told us to bring you back immediately after acquisition. Now that we've found you, we're not letting you disappear from our sight. Come with us immediately."

"May I have a table, please?" A voice behind the men said.

Turning quickly around to face the new voice, they saw it to be a dirty young man covered in something close to three feet of sand all over his body. The scraggly beard on his face only added to the age he already was, making him to be almost thirty-five instead of twenty-three. The flannel coat he wore was unbuttoned all the way down and a crinkled black cowboy hat hid his body as well as the dirt covering him right now. Even his black jeans and black shoes were turned gray from exposure to the desert outside the diner.

"What did you ask, sir?" The young M.P. questioned to the new man.

"I said, I want a table, please." The dusty man said.

"Go find your own table, the waitress is about to get off her shift." The older M.P. said as both M.P.'s turned away from the dusty man.

The dusty man waited for a few seconds before he tapped the shoulder of the young M.P. As the man started to turn around, the dusty man grabbed the M.P.'s collar and headbutted the man to the temple. Grabbing for his face, the dusty man kneed him in the crotch and stepped by him while the second man turned toward him. He reached for his gun and the dusty man jabbed him in the throat. Gagging for air, the dusty man took the M.P. by the head and introduced him into the counter.

Both M.P.'s slumped to the floor in either unconsciousness or pain.

The dusty man took their guns out of their holsters and handed them over to the waitress, Wanda. "I want a ham and cheese omlette, large o.j., and white toast." The dusty man looked at the only other person in the room and said, "At that table, please."

Nodding to the dusty man, she watched him walk over and sit down across from the man.

"Nice to see you could make it, Tom." Jason said to his friend. "Did you have to beat those guys up?"

"I wasn't in the mood to say please." The dusty man said as he took his hat off and put it on the seat next to himself.

Jason shook his head at the statement and looked at the men on the floor. "They won't like you very much when they wake up."

"Too bad." Tom said as he removed his flannel delicately. He draped it over his own chair and groaned as he settled himself into his chair.

"What happened to you?" Jason asked as his friend sat down across from him.

"I ended up walking here." Tom said as he rested his weary legs. "That's the longest damn exercise I've gone on in a long time."

"Where's the rent-a-wreck at, then?" Jason asked as he checked the unconscious guards for a second.

"Burning, I suppose." Tom said as he glanced at the men himself. "They could probably tell you where it's at." Tom stood up with a groan and said to his friend, "'Scuse me for a sec. Nature calls."

The guards were beginning to groan back into awareness as tom passed over them and headed for the stalls at the far end of the building. As soon as he had entered the bathrooms, the older guard woke up and raised himself to his feet within seconds. He immediately brought his friend to his feet and pursued Tom into the restrooms. The sounds of several stalls getting kicked open could be heard in rapid succession before silence returned.

They both came back out of the restrooms holding each other up and looking very upset. "Where did the woman disappear to?" The younger man demanded hoarsely at Jason. Apparently, he was still feeling the hurt Tom had put on him.

Jason said nothing to the man and the guard tried to reach for his gun with his free hand. Feeling the empty holster, He silently cursed to himself and returned his glare at Jason.

"When you see your friend again, tell him I'll be looking for him." The young guard spat at Jason. "I want another shot at him."

They helped each other out of the diner, holding each other up till they got back to their military jeep. Jumping into the front seat, they fired up the engine with a loud roar and sped off into the desert. Once the sound of the engine disappeared into the distance, Tom reappeared from the bathroom and came over to the table once more.

"What happened to the guards?" Tom asked as if he knew nothing.

"They packed up and left." Jason said as he motioned outside. "What happened to you?"

"I hit the roof." Tom said as he dusted some plaster out of his hair.

"Why'd you do that?" Jason asked Tom, slightly confused.

"They're almost out of toilet paper." Tom said as Wanda came out with his order. Nodding his appreciation to the waitress, Tom dug into the food before him.

"How did you do that?" Wanda asked.

"Do what?" Tom replied to her as he ate.

"Beat the hell out of those men like that." Wanda said as she gestured to where the men had previously been at on the floor. "I've never seen anything like that before."

"It takes practice, but anyone can do it." Tom said to her as he busily consumed the omlette. It looked like he was inhaling it instead of eating it.

Skeptical about the comment, Wanda went back into the kitchen.

"So," Jason began, "Did you find it?"

Tom took a drink of his o.j. before replying. "Yeah, I found it. That's why I had to walk back here."

"What happened?" Jason asked, curious and concerned at the same time.

"I was seen." Tom merely stated as if it was unavoidable. "They began chasing me and my car was shot several different times. It wrecked and went up in a fireball, end of story."

Jason looked at Tom and wondered how he could be so calm right after being shot at. If it were him, He'd still be shaking and sweating with post-trauma shock. He watched as Tom continued to eat his meal and say little, which was tom's usual attitude in public.

Finishing the last of the food off, Tom patted his lips with the napkin and motioned for them to leave. As they walked to the cashier, Tom said, "It's heavily defended out there. The stories we heard about it were just that. You still want to go?"

Jason hesitated in answering, then said, "I'm going. We've gone this far together, let's finish it."

The waitress, Wanda waited behind the cashier for the boys. She accepted the cash for the meals as she listened to the two. Watching as they left the store, they walked over to a gray Chevy truck with a gun rack on the back window. On the rack sat a pump action shotgun and a Japanese katana, easily accessible to either of the occupants. Getting into the truck, they started it up and drove out into the desert, away from the main road.

Wanda watched them till they disappeared before heading to the kitchen and the work closet in the back room. The door had a stenciled 'W.H.' on the front of it and as she opened the door, the sound of the front door to the diner sounded. There was quick stomping and the swivel door leading to the diner's tables slammed open as the two previous guards entered through its doorway.

Wanda hadn't waited for them. Hearing the front door open, she stepped into the 'W.C.' door and closed it after herself. The guards rushed the door and swung it open only to find that it was only a broom closet.

"Meyer's not going to be happy about this." The younger guard muttered.

"What Meyer don't know, won't get us killed, right?" the older guard hinted.

Catching on, the younger said, "You're right, we say nothing about what happened here. But, what about those other two?"

Wincing as he smiled, the older guard said, "That's what radios are used for."

* * *

They drove out into the desert; Tom and Jason heading for the wreckage of the burnt out car that had been Tom's ride. They stopped long enough to examine what was left of the wreckage and give there estimates, or in this case, the car's eulogy. 

"I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did." Jason said as he leaned down toward a broken window and looked inside.

"I'm just glad the thing didn't blow up while I was pushing for it to go faster." Tom said as he inspected what was left of the engine block.

"There is one thing that can be said about your vehicles when you've finished with them." Jason said as he rummaged around in the refuse the broken car held.

"And what's that?" Tom asked as he looked around the side toward Jason.

"You don't leave them in very good condition for the next person." Jason answered as he pulled out an old pop can and held it toward Tom.

Leaving the vehicle back in the desert, the two traveled another mile or so into the unrelenting, endless desert. Finding a high enough sand dune, the two agreed to continue on at night, hoping the security they would encounter would be too light to be a problem. One slept in the cab, shading his face from the harsh desert light. The other took to the underside of the truck, keeping to the shaded parts of the truck. It was a restless sleep, but sleep they did till the sun went down.

Pulling out a few dried rations out of the glove compartment, they snacked on the meager food before beginning the search again. Tom, who had found their intended target before, got out in front of the truck and led it on foot as he searched the ground for signs of his previous passing. They continued like this for another three hours, Jason slowly following Tom, Tom slowly watching the ground for the signs of his or other vehicles that had passed by recently. After the slow tediousness of the search, Tom held his hand up in a clenched fist then motioned to kill the engine.

Crawling up the sand dune to his immediate right, he peeked over the small piece of land to what they had been searching for. A base could barely be seen out in the middle of the desert, it's lights and troops trying to make sure that they weren't seen too much. By all rights even getting a good look at this infamous base was punishable by prison term indefinitely. For Tom, all he wanted to do was go inside, satisfy his curiosity, and leave.

Simple enough.

Jason crawled up next to Tom with shotgun in hand and a pair of binoculars held to his face. He gazed down at the darkened base for a long time before handing the binoculars over to Tom. The gates were a fortification all their own, the runway in back a hazard to be avoided at all costs, and the base too expansive to search unless one had a map. Tom's mind said this was a stupid idea. Fortunately, Tom never listened to the advice his mind gave him.

Motioning back toward the truck, Jason followed him down and they conferred notes.

"Place looks inpregnable." Jason said.

"Sure does." Tom answered as he took his sword of the rack and checked it one more time.

Jason stared up at the stars and said, "Not much chance of us getting in there."

"Not a chance in hell." Tom answered as he ran his thumb down the edge.

Jason sighed deeply, then looked at Tom and asked, "You still wanna do this?"

Tom resheathed the blade, looked up at the sky, then turned to face his friend with a wicked smile on his face. "I can't think of anything else that would be more of a challenge."

Jason shook his head with a rueful smile and said, "Just thought I'd ask, when do we go?"

"I want to get one more look at the fortifications, just for the hell of it. When I get back, we'll head in." Tom said as he carried both blade and binoculars up the dune. "And you can drive, if you want."

Jason called up the dune saying, "I wouldn't let you drive my truck on a bet the way you treat them!"

Coming back to the top of the hill, Tom took binoculars in hand and stared through them as if he missed something. He scrutinized the walls and the gates, even the approaching grounds to every side of the base and questioned how would be the best way into the base. There seemed to be an annoying blur between the base and where he lay so Tom tried to clean the lens a few times. Dragging them across the ground as he searched the terrain, he found the cause of the haze.

Military jeeps sped toward Tom and Jason's position hell bent for leather and not trying to be cautious about it. From the looks of it, they were coming out to take care of a stampeding herd of grizzlies with the armament they had on the vehicles. The people on the vehicles were not too pleased either, each face was set in a determined grimace that said killing was an option. Cursing to himself, Tom rushed down the hill and jumped into the back of the truck.

Sliding down the hill, Tom jumped into the back of the truck's bed and whipped out his sword.

Jason jumped out of the truck interior, shotgun in hand.

"What's going on, Tom?" Jason asked as he looked around for any potential targets.

"We got trouble." Tom yelled down at him. "I saw a lot of jeeps heading right at us, my friend. We need to be gone out of here faster than you can say Holy Batshit, Robin!"

Jason jumped into the truck cab and slammed the door behind himself, throwing the shotgun to the side seat with him. "Which way should we go, Tom?"

"Why the hell should we run, Jas?" Tom said as he crouched down in the back of the truck. "Full speed ahead and don't spare the camels."

"You sure about this, Tom?" Jason leaned out the window and looked back at Tom. "What about the guards?"

"Guards?" Tom said as he looked toward the hill blocking the base. "I don't see no steenken guards. Gun it, Jas, or they'll gun us!"

Jason didn't need any prodding after that. He cranked the engine to life and began his attack of the base. As the jeeps from the base came around the far side of the hill, Jason drove right through their midst and flew by them, leaving a cloud of dust. The sound of one or two bullets being fired off were quickly left behind as both Tom and Jason sped towards the dark and forbidding base.

The short stretch of desert between the dune and the base was quickly illuminated by the lights being turned on near the base. As the truck zoomed into the perimeter of the lights, gunfire flashes plumed outward from the tops of the fences toward the truck itself. The puffs of dirt rising up around the truck showed how close they were getting to actually hitting the gray truck, Jason doing all he can to avoiding getting perforated and Tom standing up in back, sword drawn and crouched down as he balanced in the speeding vehicle.

The sound of metal starting to be punched in the hood of the truck was the first sign that their little stint in the truck was just about over. Jason cut sharply over to the left and Tom jump out to the right side going with the sudden momentum toward the fence. Rolling in the sand and coming back up to his feet, he slashed the fence and the supports just through the fence, cutting them neatly with two or three swipes through the metal. Jumping out of the way, the fence and the occupants fell toward the desert and the slowly retreating truck. Jason spun the truck around at the sight of the fence falling and made for it as fast as possible.

Tom kept waving Jason toward the downed fence, looking over his shoulder at the base, checking for any guards coming into the base. The truck hit the slight ramp lifting out of the desert for a brief jump, then the desert met the tires and the truck lost it, tipping onto it's side and sliding to a stop near Tom. Watching till the truck stopped, Tom went over to check His lifetime friend and saw that he had been cut up by the side window on Jason's left. The window had been shot out on his side and Tom looked over the tipped over truck to see the guards who did it, but he delayed long enough to check Jason, making sure that his friend was still alive before he disappeared into the grounds of the facility.

Trying to keep to the shadows as long as he could, he found a vent in the side of one of the buildings and cut it open, then shimmied into the vent and disappeared from sight. He traveled a brief way down the air vent for as far as he could before he stumbled over a vertical air shaft and fell into it head first. Trying to slow himself as much as possible without making too much noise, he pushed against the sides of the vent hoping he could stop in time. Seeing an opening ahead of himself, he pressed all the harder against the sides making slight squeaking sounds till he came to a full stop mere inches above the air duct opening.

Breathing as slow and as calming as he could considering his current situation, he looked past the metal slats on the face of the vent peered into the room. Near the floor, maybe 20 or 30 feet away from himself, he looked down into the room at the two people below himself and watched very closely. One was a tall man, pale of skin and tall from this angle, he was talking intently with a doctor, also male. The tall man looked like he was wearing a dark green suit and stars on his shoulders, 5 in total. Tom got the impression that whatever they were talking about, the man in the green was talking power and the doctor was talking science, and they were both happy with what they were hearing.

He pushed against the sides of the vent as much as he could, but his arms began to tire and time was slowly slipping by. Even the blood rushing to his head was starting to get to him, which made holding his position not a good thing anymore, but he couldn't pull away in hopes that these two would soon leave and he could get the hell out of this tight little spot. Within a few minutes, there was a sound like doors being slammed open and the two men turned toward something. Jason's bloodied head and his limp form came into view from the right and a woman with red hair guiding Jason's table into the room toward the two till they were mere feet away.

The girl seemed to yell at the two men for a brief time and gesture at Jason for a few minutes then the man in the green cut her off with a gesture, then pointed at Jason and gestured slowly at the other doctor next to him. At that, the doctor began to press and poke at Jason's inert form, as if checking for any extra holes that he'd have to patch up anytime soon. Although the woman stood back from the doctor, every once in awhile she would jerk toward Jason and the doctor, probably because Jason was grunting in pain or she wanted to object what was happening to him.

Tom's grip slipped and he fell through the grating making a loud rattling sound as the grating fell away from the vent and down toward the floor. All three people looked up as Tom came sliding out of the vent and falling ungainly toward the floor. As he fell, Tom attempted to slash at the man in the green suit, nicking his face right above his cheekbone. He landed and hopped trying to keep the shock landing from hurting himself too badly, but the slight limp when he stood told the telltale harm.

"What have you done to my friend?" Tom said as he held the sword in front of himself.

The man in the green suit lightly placed a finger to the bleeding nick and pulled it away, checking the damage the boy had managed to do. Looking away from the blood and at the boy, He began to critically look at this impudent child who had dared attack him. The doctor looked up only long enough to see the boy then turn his eyes back to his specimen laying on the table awaiting his refined scientific skills. The woman however saw Tom and backed away from not only the sword, but tried to hide her face as well.

"What do you want, boy?" The green suited man said at Tom as edged toward Jason, keeping the green suited man in his sights constantly.

"I want you to back the hell off and leave Jason alone." Tom said as he swiped his sword over at the doctor for a brief second

The doctor now finally looked up at Tom and spoke to him. "I think your position is one you can't will, little child. Your deep within this base surrounded by all of the general's men," waving at the general, he continued to speak, "there's no possible way that you or your friend will get out of here unless we want you to."

Tom smiled and narrowed his eyes at the doctor. "That's fine with me, I just wanted to come and find out what was here, but now that I'm in hell, I think I'll just kick your ass out and take up residence as the local bad ass."

The general moved faster than Tom's eyes could keep up, then he was in front of Tom and lifting him up by his neck, but the general neither grunted nor breathed hard as Tom was lifted up by one arm. "You are not doing anything except dying, boy. No one harms me and gets away with it."

The general's hand squeezed tighter than what Tom could have believed. The air was cut from his lungs in this man's grip and his eyes seemed to drill into his eyes. Tom could of sworn though that as his vision seemed to dim, he could see the general's eyes glow with the slightest tinge of green.

"General, stop it..." The doctor said to him. The general merely aimed his gaze at the doctor but didn't relinquish his hold. "We can use that boy and his friend here." The doctor said as he tapped the weak form of Jason.

"And if I want to kill them?" The general said as he turned his eyes back to Tom's coloring face.

"Then what will your...superior...say when she finds out you destroyed two new test subjects?" The doctor said as he raised an eyebrow toward the general. "She will not be...amused." The scientist smiled, amused.

The general looked over at the doctor with a quick turn of his head, watching his face fairly closely. Tom gagged, attempting to breathe at least one last time, then the general dropped him to the ground and stood away from him. Tom coughed several times, his sight coming in flashes and the sword knocked away from his weakened hand. The doctor clapped his back and kneeled down, looking at Tom, nearly nose to nose with each other.

"How are you, my boy?" The doctor said, clapping Tom on his back so he could breath.

Tom coughed several times and nodded his head, which was all he could do for the time being.

The doctor nodded his head and looked at Tom's face with a wicked smile on his face. "Well, you were feeling good..."

Tom spasmed several times and light seared his vision, then he collapsed to the floor and convulsed uncontrollably. The doctor stood up and dropped the tazer that he held from his hand. Dry washing his hands together, the doctor looked over at both the general and the woman with the red hair. "General, lady Washu, our two test subjects have volunteered for the experiment..."

* * *

Tom head hurt considerably, a dull throbbing in his head and little light flecks dancing across his eyesight, even with his eyes closed. He groaned a little and reached up to touch his head only to feel some kind of liquid slightly restrict him as he moved his hand. He forced himself to get him senses back up and working as fast as possible not knowing where we was, straining with his reawakening senses to establish where he was at. The dull throbbing in his head was not coming from between his ears like he thought it was, it was coming from outside of whatever object he had been put into. 

Near at hand, watching Tom awaken inside the giant tube of pinkish fluid, Washu observed his reactions and readjusted the computer for the procedure which Dr. Meyer wanted to begin on with him. She had watched the procedure done on several humans before, each time a failure where the human was changed beyond its normal features to things that can only be described as nightmarish. Now watching this poor soul inside the vector recombinizer, she wondered if this child would end up like all the others, A creature begging for someone to end it's life before it's own body finally gave up on itself. She shook slightly with a tremor of remorse and disgust as she realized what this procedure reminded herself of, a fragment of her own past come back to haunt her. Shaking her head, she banished the memory back into her mind and busied herself with the final calibrations on the machine.

The doctor who had tazered Tom before walked into the room from a silent, mechanical doorway. His manner and way he conducted himself around the machines in the room was one of clinical perfection, no wasted efforts or overly exhausting work that could not be done in the most minimal of movements and an eye for detail in the near god like perfection of his own mind. He nodded at one or two technicians work and never spoken unless to chide or reprimand a mistake. It appeared his emotions were high as he came up next to Washu and began to check her figures, and he was humming something of the old classics under his breath as he fiddles with the controls now and then.

"The experiment warm up procedure is starting as normal as it had the last few times, Doctor." Washu said to the man as he worked, never caring if he was listening to her this time or not.

"Stop the warm up procedure this time, Miss Washu, We're going straight to testing today." Doctor Meyer said with a light voice, the smile on his face was one of complete bliss.

"Straight to experimentation?" Washu said with a slight shock. "We're not going to prep them for the treatments?"

The doctor looked surprised as he stood to face her. "And why should we care about these two? If you have forgotten, Professor Washu, these two boys broke into a secret base and facilities that they had no right or business to even attempt such a task, and they could of seen anything here that could compromise the security of not only us, but of their so called government as well." Meyer looked smug as he continued, "Now, you tell me, Professor, should we allow these boys the mercy that you believe they deserve, or should we treat them as what they are, law breakers who should be punished by whatever means necessary?"

Washu glared hate at Dr. Meyer. She had her moments where she wished Meyer would show humanity that he always claimed he had, but never showed to anyone unless it was something that could better his own studies. As the commands went out for the testing to be stopped and the true procedure to start up, Washu's eyes returned to the boy inside the tube, studying the last moments of this boy and committing to her memory his last breath of life.

"Energy modules at 85 and rising to full capacity, no abnormalities..." a technician said from across the room.

"Nucleic nano emitters at stand by" a second technician said near the testing tube. Tom's head whipped downward to the sound as if he sensed someone near that spot, He swam down toward the person and when he felt glass, punched at kicked near the guys head.

"Bio rhythm of the test subject is agitated and his cardio is a bit accelerated, but well within the limits of the test, Dr. Meyer." A red headed tech said as he adjusted the panel to the left of Dr. Meyer's hand. Dr. Meyer watched the test tube as if looking for a sign from god at what to do next, nothing but fanaticism on his face.

Washu glanced down at her tech pad long enough to give the go ahead for the Doctor then she looked back up and watched, a sour spot beginning to form in the pit of her stomach. The sound of the energy coils humming at nearly dangerous powers never affected the man's gaze. He was at the point of sheer bliss, when the moment of creation by his own hands was about to bear fruit. Nodding his head, the tech to the left of the doctor turned a knob, slowly introducing the rods of electricity into the pinkish fluid.

"Start out with a electro shock of 150 volts then quadruple them after every shock, introduce the nano emitters in between shocks and give them a 2 minute interval before shocking again." The doctor dictated the procedure off as if by rote, and the red headed tech typed the commands in as fast as he was told them, then laid his hand across the start procedure button and watched the doctor's face.

Raising his hands above his head like a conductor for an opera, Meyer spoke one last time before he worked. "God may have created man in his own image, now I create man anew the way he should of been created." He gestured, and the procedure button was slammed into the active position.

Tom felt the water change for a second, as if in anticipation, then he threw his head back and growled through his teeth in pain as the first electrical surge coursed over his body and into it, the pain was like fire dancing across his skin, delaying and dancing on every piece of his body before it washed off of him and left him breathing raggedly. Tom had reached up reflexively, grabbing the air mask on his mouth and nose, making sure he lost neither of them in the pain. Gasping and curling into a ball in the fluid, his mind began to shut down from the pain, deadening what he knew was going to come next, eventually.

"Nano emitters in the fluid, now releasing the nano machines into the testing area." The tech rattled off, his voice echoing in the room, amplified by the microphone held onto his headset. He tapped out a command showing the procedure as how the sensors were reading it and got back a schematic of the tube, Tom and the little microbe size nano machines as they sped toward Tom's form. "The nano emitters are retracting and the machines themselves have made contact with the subject. Entry into his body is standard, no abnormalities shown."

The doctor spoke with little emotion on his face, "Zap him again, 600 volts."

Tom convulsed and bit off another scream in his throat, growling loudly and painfully. He trembled in fits and starts, sometimes snapping outward and back to a curled position with agony. There was not only pain on his outsides, but now there felt as if something was clawing him up from inside as well. Something that felt as if it pushed his skin away from his flesh, tearing the bonds away from them and crawling around inside, in between the small area and creating a new skin, an alien skin. The electricity left him alone in his painful world, not the one inside the tube, but the one inside his own mind, A hell he could never escape from.

"Second shock completed, still monitoring the nano's progress through his system." The tech said as his eyes were guided around by the sensors and the screen. "The nano's have penetrated his chest and are assimilating the skin cells around them. It appears the ai system in the chips is working better than anticipated."

Dr. Meyer turned to Washu with a grudging smile on his face. "It appears the nano reprogramming is working, miss Washu." A red light coming on in front of Meyer turned both Washu's head and Meyer's head to the tech's pad. "What's wrong, tech?"

"The nano's have found something that is not assimilating into the nano's reconstructers. It's as if there are places in his body that the nano's have no possible alternative but to avoid." The tech seemed both amazed and befuddled as his hands danced across the keypad in front of him, trying to adjust the parameters of the nanomachines.

"Bypass and reroute then." Dr. Meyer said as he stared intently at the monitor.

"None of the bypass procedures are working, Dr. Meyer. His body has either something it shouldn't have in it, or his body is rejecting the nano's themselves." The tech looked up from the monitors to stare at the containment unit and Tom's inert form as it started to float back toward the center of the tube. He neither moved or unclenched from his curled position, just floated.

Dr. Meyer pushed the tech from his seat in front of the monitor and his hands danced across the keyboard in front of him, attempting to correct the biological error the machines had found. He tapped at a speed that would make a computer envious as information scrolled by, his eyes absorbing what they told him then moving on to the next relevant piece of information the computer brought up. "It can't be biological, the machines are flawless. It must be that the body needs to be damaged enough for the machines." The doctor thought at himself as the screens passed by his eyes at a rapid rate. Before he even let on to his intentions, he adjusted the level of electricity being dumped into the tube and hit the manual shock button himself.

This time, Tom screamed.

His yell of pain was one that came from the soul, the pain that death could only be a release to the torture that is happening to the body. Blue arc's of current danced down the sides of the tube and within the tube itself, Tom's body twitched and shuddered uncontrollably. Doctor Washu looked up at the yell coming from the tube for a few seconds not comprehending what had happened to him, then she looked back at the control pad and the sensor reading.

"5,000 volts?" Washu exclaimed at Meyer. "Are you out of your mind? He'll die at that kind of treatment!"

Doctor Meyer looked up at her calmly with an upraised eyebrow. "That is the point, Professor."

Washu was shocked for a brief moment before yelling at Meyer again. "Turn the machine off, you bastard! Turn it off or so help me..."

"Or so help you what, Professor Washu?" Doctor Meyer said as another scream came from the tube. Doctor meyer stood up to his full height and looked down at Washu contemptuously. "A true scientist will do anything to obtain the perfect specimen, even sacrifice the faulty ones, whether human or not. You of all people should be able to understand that..."

Washu stood and trembled in front of Meyer, not out of fear but out of outrage. She had seen him reach for the tazer in his white doctor's coat and she knew that he would use the tazer on her as well should she attempt to reach past him and turn the machine off. With a final sputter from the tube itself, it sputtered and spit before the lights on the machine began to dim and finally disappear altogether. Looking down at the control panel, she saw that the batteries had been drained dry of their internal charges.

Following its preprogrammed information, the tube began to unload all the fluid that it had previously had in it, the water poured out of slats that had opened up in the bottom of the container and even as they watched, the steam of something overcooked began to fill the room with its own dampness. Both Meyer and Washu walked down to the container and when the safety systems cleared for anyone who wanted to go inside, they threw open the door and peered inside. The stench was what Washu had feared, the crumpled form of Tom lay at the bottom of the container, laying in a way that was uncomfortable for anyone living.

Washu turned her head away in disgust and looked upon the verge of tears while Doctor Meyer actually got closer to the corpse and examined it. "Even without all the electrical damage to the body, the specimen is still nearly intact, although overcooked."

Washu grabbed one of the technician's who had helped with the experiment. "Fetch me a gurney and a sheet, then get someone with a fairly strong stomach on him. I want this body taken to my laboratory as soon as Doctor Meyer is done ogling his handiwork." Washu said the last word with all the scorn she could possibly muster, but Meyer paid no attention to it, He merely kept poking and prodding the dead body.

Walking away back to the control panel that Meyer had sat at mere moments ago, Washu sat down and placed her hands on her eyes as she propped her head up. She was plagued not only by the screams of Tom's last breath, but of her past as well, and the feeling of helplessness that she had then, too. Trying to be as obscure as possible, but remembering who she was at the same time, she cried silently into her hands and asked forgiveness to those that couldn't hear anymore.

* * *

It was three hours later before Washu could get back to her labs, the process with the other boy was a success only because doctor Meyer had not been there for this instance and the micro computers were able to infiltrate his body with no problems like his previous friend's body. As she walked over to her desk, she passed by the body of the dead boy, Tom if she remembered right. His head and skin had most probably been the worst scarring that she'd ever seen, the metal that had held the facemask on him and superheated and burnt into his skin causing severe lacerations when they had been cut from his face. The hair that he previously had was now black and burnt, his own body too hot to contain the heat, burning up from the inside out as his own body fluids started to boil. 

She shook her head and continued past his body, shaking her head. "Another murder at the hands of that maniac, Meyer." Washu thought as she sat down at her desk and held her head for a moment. Sitting at her desk caused a translucent computer to activate and hover in mid air in front of Washu's face, taunting her with the vitals and the current history of the dead body up until this point. Banging her enclosed hands on her desk, the monitor and keyboard jumped like a bad picture tube before disappearing from sight.

Standing up from the plain, brown desk, she walked over to the table and brought out a small handheld tape recorder. Clicking the recorder button, she spoke into it. "Professor Washu, chronicling the failed experiment on one Tom Steele, passed away most gruesomely near the final phases of the experiment." She pulled the sheet away to get a good look at the extent of the damage and continued. "Subject took extreme voltage inside the testing chamber resulting in electrical trauma across all 100 of his body, however from physical examination, the damage to his epidermis suggests that the insides of him are far worse."

She pulled the sheet further down, exposing his entire upper torso and keeping his waist covered. Pressing down softly onto his chest, she located a scar to the left of his nipple on the left side. "Subject has a scar and it appears to be scar tissue from a past trauma, but would not be the cause for why the nanomachines inside of him were not able to absorb it into themselves. I theorize that a piece or fragment of some weapon may have been left inside of the body, which threw off the sensors and set the alarms off in the testing area."

Washu walked away from the body back to her desk and kept talking into the tape recorder as she went in search of her tools. An autopsy was going to be needed for such an examination to be a complete one, and if anything, she would make sure that there would be no other people dead because she couldn't find the answer. She fiddled around, moving paperwork back and forth on her desk knowing that what she wanted was directly on top of the table, but the way she was right now didn't help things. She knew that examining this boy's body was going to be hard, and she didn't want to do it, but if she didn't, she'd never learn about her son.

Finding the scalpel and few tools needed to explore the cadaver, Washu pocketed them in her lab coat and walked back to the body. "Hopefully, the results of this exploration will be more revealing than the last 74...", she turned the tape recorder off and laid it down next to Tom's body, pulling her working tools out and inspecting the body at a closer view. Pressing down on the chest area, She began tracing out the area where she needed to cut before she actually did it, cutting a body only cause it was dead was rude.

"Hhmmm...", she said to no one in particular, "It appears that the epidermis is actually better than what I first thought...", Washu cut into the chest and traced downward with the blade. Putting the scalpel down long enough to reach for her tape recorder, she hit the record button again and turned back to the body. "First incision has just been made, beginning to start the internal...wha?"

Turning back to the body had revealed the incision she had made was mysteriously gone.

"It appears the stress of long term work has finally sent me over the edge. The incision I thought I had made is no longer on the body." She placed the mic end of the tape recorder up and picked up the scalpel once more. "Now, then. Beginning the internal examination again with the standard incision across the xyphoid and down the sternum of the chest." Washu made the incision once again.

As she watched, the skin parted for the scalpel only long enough for the blade to pass through the flesh and bleed a little before the incision from the blade was joined together again as if it had never been cut. Stepping back for a second, Washu rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her lab coat before leaning forward and pressing a inquisitive finger down on the area where the cut had been.

"Wonder what this means?" Washu said as she traced the unblemished and unhurt skin. Even as she watched, the skins natural color began to lighten to that of a normal living person. Burnt areas nearly black from electrocution began taking on the fleshy color of life and hair previously burnt away returned as if it had never of been lost. Reaching underneath her lab coat, she pulled out a stethoscope and checked for anything that would signify life in the body.

At first, the body lay lifeless and cold underneath the scrutiny of the doctor's eyes. Then the body began a slight twitch that creeped up his form, starting at the toes and moving up Tom's lifeless form. The little hair's along Tom's frame stood up on end as if a small electro shock traveled unseen up toward his head. The hair's slowly stood on end reaching all the way up to his scalp before calming down and laying flat against his body once more. Taking a breath, Washu jumped away as Tom's previously dead body began to breath on it's own once more.

"What in all the cosmos did Meyer do to your body?" Washu muttered to herself, reaching up and slowly dragging her fingers across the base of her own throat. She watched as at first, Tom's eyes fluttered and finally opened.

"Running diagnostics... Internal body functions, regulated." Tom spoke as if a machine, flat and systematic. "Outer sensory perceptions, on line...Motor functions...", he flexed his left arm as if testing it, "fully functional. Starting basic testing of contact sensors." Tom sat up in a blur of motion, and then wavered. "Noted enhanced speed and reflexes. Analyzed and filed for further testing."

Standing and testing his balance, Tom performed a cartwheel followed by a swinging axe kick that nearly cost him his balance. Then he jumped and tucked in the air, rolled on his shoulders to his feet, planted his hands on the floor and performed a sweep with his right leg. Tucking into a crouch, he sprung backwards and performed a handstand walking a few feet on his hands before returning to his feet.

"Academic standards, sufficient." Tom spoke and turned to face Doctor Washu who was still trying to figure out how he returned to the living. "Proceeding with testing program. Primary objectives, Obtain necessary articles to blend in with the surrounding populace and draw no attention to myself, obtain weapons, then proceed to the testing grounds." He walked toward Washu.

"Your clothing is below the table and your weapon is with them..." Washu nearly stuttered out, hoping that the newly awakened man didn't come after her.

Stopping his approach, he turned his gaze to the articles she had addressed and proceeded to arm himself. As soon as he laid his hands on the flannel coat, he blurred and in a few seconds was dressed as he was when he had made his entrance from the roof ventilation duct. He merely turned his head and looked at washu for a brief moment, as if studying his only occupant's form and committed her to memory.

"Direct me to the front gates and point me east." Tom's voice was cold, crisp, and to the point.

Nodding her head, Washu led as she took Tom first to the elevator shaft and finally out to the front gate. Pointing to the rising sun, she motioned for the gates to open up. She didn't want to provoke a violent reaction from her guest yet.

"That is the direction you seek." Washu said as she looked up into Tom's face. "But why...?"

"Target programming engaged." Tom said as his face took on a look of finality. A look that said that whatever stood in front of him would soon meet a fate worse than death. Crouching for a brief time, He sprinted at his previous enhanced speed and accelerated across the desert toward the east.

Washu stood and watched the dust cloud he left behind till it disappeared over the rising horizon. A second shadow came up along side of hers and stood watching out to the east. Looking up, it was Doctor Meyer that watched the running form of Tom run toward his goal.

"It would appear as if our test subject was a resounding success." He said with a little smile on his face. "Now he rushes home to show off his newly given gifts to all those he cares about."

"Are you happy now, Meyer?" Washu said, looking up at Meyer and scowling at him. "A life has been changed and for what? So that you can become god?"

"God has nothing to do with it, my dear Washu." Meyer said as he continued to gaze out east. "God is in heaven, all will be right with the world once I've helped them attain a higher purpose in their lives."

His smile was anything but good.

* * *

His dreams ran with red, the color of blood and of warmth, but it wasn't happy, comforting warmth. His dreams were of violence, of flesh ripping away from a sweeping blade, of screaming. Of eyes that begged to know why they had been betrayed. His soul cried out in pain and his mind reeled with the smell of fresh blood as it hit his dream face. He tried to turn his head and another person came into his view and their blood joined his face. 

Willing himself from this nightmare, he hoped that he would wake up. Floating in this delusion for eternity, he felt weightless yet at the same time, weighed down by the dream that wouldn't release it's claws from him. He turned to the darkness which was at the core of his being, a darkness that devoured everything that it touched with its black, icy claws. And the darkness answered him and embraced him within it's protectiveness.

His eyes opened for a brief moment before the light blinded him and he grimaced. There was the sound of a brief motion, but Tom didn't even perceive it. His brain was running on auto pilot and the person behind the wheel was asleep on his tour around six flags theme park.

"Is he supposed to do that, sarge?" An unsteady, young voice said.

"Don't mind it, I hear from Doc Meyer himself that he don't do nothing unless he's ordered to, just like a good lil' ol doggie." An older, gruffer voice said to the other one.

Tom's brain began trying to comprehend what he was hearing so far. His body felt numb and his emotions were still reeling from the dreams, but his mind still wouldn't connect with reality.

"They say he slaughtered his entire house, that his nick name is Grizzly Butcher, not biscuit." The young voice said.

Tom's ears perked up and listened, the driver finally aware of his surroundings.

"Yeah, this is him, alright." The gruffer voice said. "Killed his entire family lickity split and didn't slow the hell down doing it. Said that he had a smile on his face and a spring in his step doing it."

Tom felt a cold chill run down his back. It was too big a coincidence, but he wanted to listen for a bit longer.

"So what're we supposed to do with him now?" The young guard said as Tom felt the object below him begin to move someplace.

"D block." The gruff man said, obviously not liking his job. "Washu's lab for starters, then off the the crematorium to destroy him."

"Destroy him, the young guard sounded a bit out of sorts, "Why do we have to destroy him?"

"Word has it that he heals at rapid speeds." The gruff man said to the younger one. "Takes a bullet and in seconds, there's no bullet hole or a wound. They think that his body heals on reflex so fire to burn him to death, or if all else fails, suffocate him to death on the gas fumes in the room then burn him."

The sounds of swinging doors and the slight jar to the table meant he had just gone into another part of the super structure, wherever he was. The smell of antiseptic and gun oil was all over the place, but Tom's kept his face straight and in control. He bided his time till it was the right time to strike at those who meant him harm. One more sliding door opened with a brief whirling sound and then Tom was wheeled into another room smelling of ozone and something else, something his nose couldn't place.

"Here's your pupil, Dr. Washu, for his last lessons in life." The gruff man said to someone.

"Very well, you make go now." A female's voice said, she sounded tired but resigned to her duties.

With a quick staccato of boot heels, the men left the room the same way they came in. There came a tapping sound of another pair of shoes up to the side of his table and a poking finger into his ribs. Tom's eyes came open and looked down at the offending finger that did the deed. Washu's face turned toward Tom's, a look of weary resignation on it at first, then horrified surprise.

"How did you wake up?" Washu gasped as she slowly stepped back from his gurney.

Tom sat up and held his head for a second with his right hand. Rubbing at the temple of his forehead, He looked around the room. There was a small wooden desk near the back wall next to a wooden door with the letters W.C. emblazoned on the top of the door frame, a small electrical keypad embedded in the wall on its left side. The rest of the wall was all stone and metal, stone for the floors and the walls, metal for everything that hung above them, including the ceiling.

"Meyer ordered you to kill me, didn't you?" Washu said as she kept walking away from Tom one step at a time. "He finally doesn't need my services anymore..."

Tom looked over at the desk. Something was wrong with it but he couldn't place what was. There were the sheets of paper on the top of the desk, a complete mess, a transparent keyboard, a floating screen with weird lettering on it, and a small desk lap that wasn't plugged into anything Tom could see from his angle.

"Meyer won't get away with this, he can't. Not with what he's already done to me, to you!" Washu was starting to sound near frantic, but he pushed her voice to the side. A transparent keyboard? A floating computer screen with nothing holding it up?

Finally turning his gaze to Washu, Tom finally spoke. "What the hell are you talking about, lady?"

Washu looked shocked for a second time. "What did you say?"

Tom shook his head. "Never mind what I said, listen to what I'm saying. Where the hell am I? Who are you? Where the hell is the nearest McDonald's?"

Washu's jaws dropped.

Seeing as how the red haired woman looked flabbergasted, Tom got unsteadily to his feet and walked over to the computer. The strange script on the computer didn't make any sense to him, even less sense when he put his hand through what should of been a monitor screen. Walking over to Washu, Tom got a better look at her. She stood 5'2", Red spiky hair tied back with a cloth ribbon that went from the back of her head to the waist, same color as her hair, of course, and the rest was an unadorned, white lab coat.

Tom knocked on her forehead. "Hello? Earth calling..." Tom looked for a name badge.

"Washu." The stunned doctor spoke for him.

Tom bent down to get a good look at her face, and to stare her in the eye. "Something wrong? You look like you just saw Elvis get up and claim he's actually Monica Lewinsky."

All Washu could do is shake her head.

Tom heard the door open up behind him and his face turned to look. There was a sudden flash from the opened doorway and Tom grabbed Washu and pulled her down behind the gurney. Grabbing the gurney's leg, he lifted it up and made it tip over in between the attackers and them. The sharp rat tat tat of the gun bullets laying into the table stop after a few seconds.

Tom looked over at Washu. "Friends of yours?"

"Are you kidding?" Washu was in near hystericis.

"Come out doctor." The gruff voice from the men came from the doorway. "The general has named you a vital threat to this base. You and your toy are to be terminated with all prejudice!"

"Sounds like your fan club wants you to do an encore..." Tom said as he glanced around the side of the gurney. The guards were not showing themselves, however their faces were hidden as well.

"Would you be serious for a second?" Washu said quietly at Tom. "They're out to kill both of us, you idiot!"

Tom looked over at Washu with a smile on his face. "Stay here."

He reached over and kissed her lips then winked at her. Another brief gunfire rattled across the frame of the gurney and Tom was moving to the side of the doorway as quietly as he could. He reached the wall and pressed up against the side of it as silently as a shadow, then edged himself toward the doorway.

"We're coming in, Doctor!" The gruff voice spoke again and the first man came through further than Tom.

His back was to him and the way the man trembled spoke volumes about his in battle combat experience. The second one through saw Tom, an old man with gray starting to show in his hair. Tom grabbed the barrel of the gun and lifted the barrel straight up, using his surprise to aim the gun for a brief moment. He hauled back and kicked the man square in the nuts getting the whoulf he wanted to hear then turned back to the younger man. As his face turned around to see what had happened to his partner, he took a seriously hard kick from Tom's leg coming back from his game winning kick to the older man.

As both men went down, Tom took the rifle away from the older man and called to Washu. "Kay, you can come out now."

Washu peeked up over the ruined gurney and looked at the scene that had quickly finished. Reaching over to grab Tom's sword she lifted it up only to be met by his hand on her shoulder.

"You o.k., Ma'am?" Tom asked, looking genuinely concerned for her well being.

Washu looked deep into his eyes as they changed from a steel gray color to a light blur green. "Uh...Yeah. I think I'll make it."

Tom did a quick nod of his head then returned to looking around the room, especially at the guards. "We'd best get out of here. Who knows when they're going to be more of them coming around to check up on laurel and hardy there."

"Then we'd best get down to the basement for your friend." Washu said as she handed Tom the sword.

"Jason?" Tom asked. "He survived that wreck?"

"Yeah, he survived. Right about now they should be sending him into the testing area for his final checks." Washu said as she walked around the guards and peeked out the door. She looked both ways then turned around at the sound of another groan of pain from one of the guards.

Tom removed his foot from the older guards stomach. "Sorry, he tried to get up." Tom slung the sword over his shoulder and carried the auto rifle in front of him as if he knew how to use one.

Following Washu to a series of swinging doors, she turned to the left and pressed the elevator button. Tom looked left and right for any attackers and for anyone else who would see them. The halls were all metal and rock as if the entire place was craved out of the very rock around them, only the lights and the doors showed that any life was actually down here. The shadows made Tom feel comfortable, which in all wasn't such a good thing after his dreams. When the door opened for the elevator, he was more than glad to get into the thing with her.

She took out a special I.D. card from the inside of her coat and pressed for the last button on the keypad. Once it finally lit up, she inserted the key card into a slot just below the panel and replaced it back in her coat before the elevator decided it wanted to go on it's trip into the base.

"So, where is this place anyways?" Tom said as he tried to strike up some conversation between the woman and himself.

"You don't want to know, basically its hell for anyone who's not supposed to be here." Washu said as she leaned against the far wall away from Tom.

"Kay, next question." Tom said as he tried to think of a few places worse than hell. "What kind of tests are they doing to Jason?"

Washu leaned her head back against the side of the elevator as it slowly descended and listened to the humming of the motor. "You'll see for yourself when we get there."

Tom was getting the idea this wasn't going to be as easy as he thought. "If you messed around with Jason, that means you messed with me as well." Tom scratched at his beard as he glanced away from Washu. "So, what did you do to me?"

Washu looked directly at Tom. "I think you know."

"I have a vague guess from what I overheard, but how do I use them?" Tom said as he shrugged. "I'm not exactly the smartest man in the world, ya know."

"How you use them is as big a mystery as is how you got up and walked out that first day." Washu said as she laid out how Tom's 'science' day went. "After that you got up and ran off toward your preprogrammed mission."

As Tom processed this info, the elevator stopped and opened into a very dimly lit corridor. Washu and Tom both got out but they left the gun in the doorway, making sure no one could call it away for any reason. Washu pointed down the left hand corridor.

"Go that way till it dead ends then turn left, the last doors are the testing area." She explained to Tom. "I must go and cause a brief computer foul up or we'll never get out of here alive."

Tom looked down where she had pointed, but spoke up for her anyways. "You'd best not try to warn anyone about me. I'd hate to come back and try to find you later on."

Washu looked at his back. "Since someone's tried to kill me already, I don't think you have to worry about that anymore. Just make sure you get back here in ten minutes, or I'm leaving you behind." Even as they went in their separate directions, Washu prayed that he succeeded in getting his friend back. Meyer was going to pay for his betrayal and the general was going to pay double.

Tom reached the back of the corridor and found the door's at the end of it. Placing his ear to the door revealed nothing to him, but cracking the door was worse than he could have expected. Jason walked through a hail of every weapon imaginable, even a few that were hard to believe. Every weapon except that of a nuclear holocaust pounded on Jason as he walked a slow plod through the torrent of weapons fire and all of it splashed off of him like rain drops. Finally arriving at a marked spot on the floor made the gunfire end and the onlookers to step out of a cubby hole tucked into a unseen wall space.

"You have done good work, Meyer. This specimen has outlasted every test we have." The general said as he walked toward Jason, Meyer tagging along like the little puppy he was.

"His flesh is resistant to every trauma we can inflict on him, even down to the finest lasers, and yet it is as soft and malleable as your average skin." Meyer said as he gripped a hunk of fleshy cheek and wiggled it.

"Indeed." The general said as he smiled a self satisfactory smile at the doctor. "How soon can we change the rest of the men on the base into these mindless soldiers?"

"At your discretion, Lord Kagato." Doctor Meyer bowed humbly before the general.

Tom took the safety off the gun in his hands and brought it to bear in front of himself.

"Then begin the procedure, Dear doctor." The general gestured to the door Tom hid behind. "My mistress wants this planet conquered within a week."

Tom pushed the door opened and aimed at the general. "Excuse me, Is this the N.R.A. meeting I heard about?"

The general and Meyer turned to look at Tom as Tom opened fire on the general. The general's body shook with the gunfire impacting into his flesh and eventually fell backwards from the beating to his merciful death. The doctor, however, had hid behind Jason, keeping himself safe from the bullet fire. Tom threw down the gun and pulled out his sword as he made his way to his best friend.

"The guards who failed to kill you will pay for this." Meyer screamed out from behind Jason.

"How are they going to do that when I already killed them?" Tom said as he walked around Jason and grabbed the collar of Meyer. He threw him back and down toward the nearest wall then approached with righteous anger in his eyes. "How dare you defile us with your damned experiments! We were normal humans before you fucked with us! Now what the hell are we, doc?" Tom aimed the blade end toward the doctor's nose as Meyer tried to crawl backwards.

"You're better than the average human. You are the next step in evolution!" The doctor raved at Tom. "Because of me, you have transcended the normal bounds of humanity and become like gods!"

"And what did it cost me, dear doctor?" Tom said as he leaned in toward Meyer, sword still in between him and the doc. "What piece of my soul was the price for having these powers?"

"What do you mean?" Meyer said warily, his eyes shifting back and forth before his back hit the wall behind him.

"I went out on a pre test the very day I was raised from the dead." Tom said to Meyer, his voice staying even and composed. "What was that test?"

Meyer stood and smiled evilly at Tom. "You had to kill your own family."

Tom stepped back, his dreams dancing across his eyes once more. While Tom was trying to control himself and what the doctor said, Meyer stood up and dusted himself off.

"Y-Your lying..." Tom said, his voice deep with emotion.

"Fraid not, dear boy." Meyer said with an evil little chuckle. "You had to go, kill your family, and then return with the news of their demise." Meyer reached into one of the pockets on his lab coat and pulled out a ragged article from the Columbus dispatch. It showed in bold letters across the top of the page 'Family butchered in home made blood bath'. "To be a god, you must have no past. Correct, Kagato?"

Tom whipped around, looking for the dead general. Instead the man stood, green eyes with black pupils replacing his normal face. The bullet holes were gone and the blood that had flown from them also missing, not only from the clothes, but from the ground as well.

"You are so correct, my dear doctor." The man said as he extended a hand toward Tom and Meyer, a glowing green softball forming in the palm of his hand. Kagato didn't look very happy as he said, "You're also very dead."

Tom jumped to his left, then was thrown the extra feet as an explosion from the doctor knocked him through the air. Rolling on instinct alone, he landed roughly on his shoulder and looked toward the explosion. What was left of the doctor was bits and pieces of red matter and white lab coat shreds, least the man went quickly. Tom would have made it last a bit longer.

Looking at the general, he saw that another of the green softballs was forming. Taking a quick cue, Tom sprinted toward Jason and hoped that extra speed kicked in. On the first step he felt his body...change. It felt more relaxed and at the same time, more juiced up than anything ever before. Time around him slowed as he sped up and he aimed.

Not bothering to be gentle, Tom hit Jason and lifted like a football lineman, plowing Jason through the door and into the hall beyond. Nearly losing his balance from carrying the extra weight of Jason then running through the door with him was worse, but with his enhanced reflexes. He managed to keep his balance and speed away with his partner.

Kagato merely stood and watched as the two boys got away from him. He knew there would come another day for them, his mistress didn't leave loose ends behind to tangle herself up on.

Returning to the elevator, Tom realized something was a bit different about it. For one thing, the lights in the elevator shaft were not red instead of the luminescent yellow. Washu return in a few seconds after Tom's and instructed Jason into the elevator, which he followed. After the elevator was closed, Washu pushed the button for her lab floor and breathed a sigh of relief. Passing by the first level, Tom thought he heard a siren.

"Jas?" Tom said as he waved a hand in front of his face.

"Don't bother. He's under mind control." Washu said as she leaned against the elevator.

"Telepathic?" Tom asked as he looked into his friends eyes.

"No, a computer chip installed in his brain. You had one as well." Washu said as she tapped her own head.

Tom felt his head. "Why isn't mine still working then?"

"Your body heals itself, remember?" Washu spoke like she was teaching a student and she was the head teacher. "Your body probably worked at it for so long that it was finally able to sidestep the technology, or it incorporated the thing into you."

"So that's why my friend is a veggie..." Tom said as he looked into his friend's glazed eyes.

Washu looked at Jason. "Jason, voice recognize."

"Recognize as the shrew." Jason intoned as if he was worshipping someone.

"Shrew, huh?" Washu raised an eyebrow. "Something else Meyer will pay for later." Shaking her head, Washu continued. "Jason, I order you to go back to my laboratory and to go through the door marked with a W.C. in it, do you understand?"

Jason nodded his head.

As the doors to the elevator opened up, chaos rained on the floor. Red flashing lights and sirens emitting an ear piercing noise rained over the halls. People rushed by to the left and to the right of Jason as he merely shrugged by everyone that tried to go through him, then felt the sheer power behind him. Washu and Tom didn't stop once as they stayed close behind Jason, following in his wake. None of them stopped till they got back into Washu's room.

Looking back out into the hallway, Tom spoke over the noise, "What the hell do you mean by a little distraction, Washu? That's a goddamn army out there!"

"Sorry, you'll have that when you start the reactor core of a nuclear power plant into meltdown!" Washu yelled back over the roar as she raced over to the W.C. door. Typing a rapid fire code into the keypad, she opened the door for Jason and grabbed Tom's hand. "Come on, We've got to go!"

Stepping through the doorway with Washu, he found himself on a sci-fi movie set, or one he really hoped was one. The monitor before him took up the entire wall from floor to ceiling, Jason standing to the side of the door was staring at it. Walking over to the only seat in the room, Washu sat down into it and typed into the keypad on the left handhold. A small version of nevada came up on the monitor.

"Think that monitor's big enough?" Tom quipped as he came over next to Washu.

Tom looked around the room and inspected his new surroundings. The small, ten foot room they entered into from the only other door in the room, it consisted of two computer terminals situated around a command chair with one wall taking up entirely by a screen that would shame a movie theatre. Yeah, real sci-fi stuff going on here, especially with the silent mad scientist routine going on.

Washu pointed at the screen, "Watch."

There was a brief flash instantly muted by the monitor. Then a mushroom cloud formed and expanded outward. The lettering and the words to the side of the monitor meant nothing to him, but the numbers coming up on it were telling the story all on their own. They say that Nevada was a place for new weapons testing and for a lot of alien encounters, now they can say it's the place where the third world war started. All across the country, missiles left silos in an attack that never happened, but an explosion occurred that was believed to be an attack caused some hot heads to think differently.

Tapping into her computer pad, Washu brought up a wide range effect estimate of what might happen when the missiles finally struck their targets. Getting her answer, she programmed the ships heading and got out of her seat.

"Any last words you wish to say to a dying planet?" Washu said over her shoulder as she went to walk out of the room, guiding Jason by the hand.

"Whoever this 'mistress' is, she just got herself a new dancer in this little ball." Tom said as he watched the starscape begin to reel in the monitor's view. "The last dance will be with me, and it'll be a dance that she'll never forget."

* * *

I feel a certain sense of nostalgia work its way over me as I edit and post this. It almost makes me want to cry, then I remember that the white castle's did their work on me last night .

Hate me for posting this, it's definitely too long for a normal story, but I said I did edit it. You should see the printed version of this thing. All twenty chapters. Props to Dragonwiles for briefly noting the few problems I absently glanced over since I'm too lazy to fix it. Next Chapter will be up when I have the time to edit it, and that means when I'm not so lazy. T.T.F.N.


	4. Chapter Three

Well, I got this one edited faster than what I was anticipating. Now for a much needed nap before heading off to throws up in a garbage can work. Two characters will be added in this chapter as they race toward the world of El-Hazard, hereby named planet Krinas. Am I forgetting anything? Oh, yeah...

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, lands, plots, or enemies of El-Hazard/Tenchi series. I own only Jason and Tom.

I will sell the rights to Tom and Jason though if I can get a piece of Pioneer's action. smiles innocently**

* * *

**

**Chapter 2**

**Journey's beginning**

Tom couldn't watch the screen anymore, the sheer realization that his planet was dying couldn't sit well on him under any circumstances. Turning away from the monitor, Tom looked at Jason seriously for the first time. His friend seemed to be under a hypnotic state any way you looked at it, a virtual zombie given life. Snapping his fingers in front of his friends face didn't even give him the satisfaction of watching his partners eyes blink.

"Total veggie." Tom muttered and waved a hand slowly in front of Jason's face.

"Of course, he is." Washu said as she came back into the room holding a piece of sci-fi tech that looked like some high priced tuning fork. "When I put someone under, I do one hell of a job with them."

"What's with the electric dousing rod?" Tom said gesturing to the tech in Washu's hands.

"This," Washu held the techno piece in front of Tom, waving it, "is going to bring your friend out of his little daze."

"Before you do that, turn the monitor off." Tom said as he gestured behind him. He couldn't turn around to it no matter how much he wanted to. "I don't want Jason to realize that what happened to the planet meant his family's death."

Nodding only once to Tom, she snapped her fingers and the monitor shut off with a brief discharge of power. Returning her gaze to the Zombie-like Jason, she held the single rod end and pointed the tuning part to Jason's eyes. Se pressed a side button out of Tom's view and held it there for a brief second as the machine began lighting up toward the twin rod ends, a humming coming from the machine. A twin lance of lights shot into Jason's eyes and Tom briefly uttered a quick curse as he drew his sword and watched.

Jason scrubbed his eyes absently and yawned greatly. "Uuuuaaahhhh..." he blinked and looked around."Where the hell am I?" Jason spoke sleepily.

Tom resheathed his sword and approached his friend. "Dude, I'm afraid our wishes came true." Tom spoke to Jason. "E.T. came for a visit and she's taking us home like souvenirs."

Jason looked confused for a moment. "Huh?" he said.

"Just who you gonna call? E.T. buster?" Washu said as she placed the sci-fi tuning fork in one of her pockets and placed her hands on her hips.

Jason looked around in a confused state. "Where the hell did we end up at?" he spoke quietly as he looked around.

"Well," Tom said as he sidled up next to his best bud, "we're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy." Jason, who usually replied to that, merely stood in mute awe as he stared at his surroundings.

"So, where would you boys like to be taken to?" Washu said as she walked over to the lone chair in the room. She rapid tapped into the pad and brought up a stellar map.

"Someplace habitable, where we could slip in unnoticed and not stand out." Tom said as he came to stand next to Washu and watch her fingers work across the keyboard. "Someplace where we can be normal people again, not what we were made into."

"Uh, excuse me..." Jason said as he walked up on the other side of the chair, "Just what the hell are you two talking about?"

Washu looked at Jason then looked over at Tom, "You want to tell him or should I?"

Jason looked uneasy back and forth from Tom and Washu. "Tell me what?"

Tom looked up at Jason and gave him a hard eyed look. "We can't ever go back to earth, dude. Maybe sometime later on, but not now. Not for a long while, anyways."

Jason stared at Tom for a long while, finally nodding assent at Tom. "It's ok with me, I suppose. Wasn't doing anything important on earth anyways." He shrugged his shoulders and turned his eyes to the screen. "Sides, my family can get along good without me."

Tom swallowed a small voice that wanted to speak, reasoning in his head that he could always tell his friend later the honest truth. He only hoped that his friend could forgive him when the time came.

"Wait a minute," Jason said as his brain just registered something, "You said 'normal'. What has changed about us, Tom?"

Tom looked around the room and found a loose piece of junk. Picking the piece of junk up, he handed it to Jason and stood back. "Kay, Jas. Grip the metal as hard as you can."

Jason looked skeptical at Tom, but trusting his bud, he squeezed down on the piece of metal. With a loud screeching sound, the metal crumpled into a small shredded heap in his hand. Jason first looked quizzically at the metal then dropped it to the floor.

"What's that supposed to prove, Tom?" Jason asked Tom with a look of confusion on his face. "Course tin foil is going to crumple like that."

Tom took Jason's hands in his own and began straining against them in a test of strength. Jason looked into Tom's face confused for a moment and let Tom strain against his arms, not attempting to fight back. Tom, finally stopping and looking into Jason's face, leaned in and bit down on Jason's nose. Jason yelled in pain and yanked away from Tom's hands, snapping the finger bones in his hands.

"Ow!" Jason leaned away from Tom, holding his nose with both of his hands. "What the hell did you do that for?"

Tom slumped down to the ground, gasping in pain. "Now...Jas...take a look at my fingers..." He held his hands up to Jason's view, showing the bones protruding through his skin.

Jason looked stunned at Tom's fingers and watched as the flesh pulled the bones back into place, then healed the skin as if the fingers were never damaged in the first place. Jason took hold of Tom's fingers and Tom winced as Jason checked the fingers to see if what he saw was exactly what he saw.

"What in the...?" Jason said as his gaze traced his friend's fingers, and then looked at his own.

"There's more, Jas." Tom handed a dollar bill to him and held his hand up and away from his face. Wiggling his still hurting hands, Tom held his pose for a second, and then punched at the bill. The breeze pushed his hand away and Jason brought the hand back, watching Tom. Making a gesture with his hand, he held up only the center of the bill.

Jason looked at the bill he held and peered through the hole in the center of the bill. "Just how the hell did you do that?" Jason said with confusion deep in his voice.

"That's not all, my friend." Tom didn't hesitate in reaching in to Jason's belt and grabbed the small blade hanging from his belt. Tom pulled the blade free and placed it to Jason's throat, then drug it across his throat in one rapid flash motion.

Falling away from the already happened action, Jason grabbed at his throat. He breathed raggedly, thinking that his throat had been opened from ear to ear. Looking at his hand, he expected to see blood and instead, only saw his open hand. Just to prove his point, Tom drove the blade into Jason's chest, snapping the weapon into two pieces.

"Welcome to the twilight zone, Jason. It's a one way trip and all points are final." Tom said in a sad, small voice.

"Now that you boys are done playing with each other, I've selected a planet I think you two can do some good on." Washu said as she brought up the info on the planet on the screen. Jason and Tom both came back to their feet and looked at the monitor.

"The planet's name is Krinas, it has an artificial moon made by an old race, it hovers in view at all hours of the day and the other well known monument would be Mount Muldoon. Stories have it that there are supposedly priestesses that live on top of the mountain. The biggest city on the continent of Krinas is Floreshtica, ruled by the house of Pronelius." Washu rattled of the info at rapid speed, not giving much time to remember it.

"Hey, hey, slow down, my brain's getting jet lag." Jason said as he tried to remember what was just said.

Tom chuckled and Washu typed into the pad again, the lettering on the screen instantly turned to earth dialect. "Here, I've turned on the translation systems for you two. Just type into the keypad anything you want to know and it'll display what you ask for, unless I don't know about it." Washu said as she slid out of the control chair. "Quarters for sleeping are down the hall, you can't miss them, the doors will auto open to you as you walk by them, so don't get too freaked out."

"Uh, Washu..." Jason said as he looked from the screen to her and back again.

"Yes, what is it Jason?" Washu said as she rubbed her neck.

"Um, I was just wondering..." Jason said as he dry wiped his hands on his pants legs, "Do you have anything on this ship like a firing range? If we're going to this planet, I'd like to be armed with more than just my clothes."

"Sure, follow me." Washu beamed, finally having a use for all those weapons she built. She glanced over at Tom who was taking a seat in the chair that Washu had vacated. "What about you, Tom? You're going to need more than that sword of yours..."

Tom's hands flew across the keypad in a blur and brought up a schematic of the weapons that Washu had created, or at least, a quick reference list of weapons ranging from hand projectile to heavy artillery. "I think I'll look around in your comp first before I decide on anything. Thanks anyways, Washu."

Washu shrugged and walked out the door, Jason looked one last time at Tom before following her. They walked corridor after corridor, passing doorway after doorway, till finally Washu stopped before a door with stripes of color walking up and down the frame of the door. Jason looked up and down the corridor, getting confused and frustrated.

"Isn't there any other color or design to you except cold gray corridors and long winding hallways? I could swear that we'd been this way before..."

Washu looked back the way they had just been. "The halls are made to look like they over lap each other because if someone happened to make it past the outside defenses of the ship, they'd get lost long enough for me to activate the internal defenses. No one can get the jump on me..."

Washu felt a tap on her shoulder and nearly came out of her skin as she jumped and spun in the air to see who had snuck up on her.

"What took you so long getting here?" Tom said as he stood up from the wall.

Washu glowered at Tom as if she wanted to brow beat him. "I thought you said you were going to look through my computer for awhile?"

"I did, that's how I got here so fast without you knowing I was here." Tom said as he grinned at Washu.

Muttering under her breath, Washu placed her hand to the center of the door. For the briefest of instants, there was a little flash underneath her fingers, and then the door opened with a hiss and a whir. Looking inside, the contents were an NRA member's wet dream come true. Guns and rifles of unknown intent or potential lined the wall with their shiny chrome and steel hides shining brightly with the light from the room. Behind the racks and further down the far side was a shooting range and targets for the various guns to blow into small pieces to patch up little soup cans with.

"My god..." Jason commented softly as he stepped into the room and gazed around, his hunting desires rising up in him.

"Definitely means Bambi is going to be put on the endangered species list now." Tom said from the doorway, standing behind Washu as she commented at the door in a soft voice.

"All these guns are for my use?" Jason said as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Washu looked at him as if he was nuts. "You mean you don't want to check out the vehicles?"

Jason turned around in disbelief. "Vehicles?" he asked.

"Uh-oh, now you've done it." Tom said as he shook his head, and shrugged. "Well, I'm out of here, going to go back and see if I can learn something else." Tom was gone even before they could turn around to say good bye to him.

Shaking her head at where Tom had stood before, she turned back to Jason and pointed to a side door in the room. "Through there is the vehicle bay, hope you have a year's worth of time on your side, you'll need that long just to check out some of those vehicles."

Jason looked as if he was going to weep with joy, the thought of weapons and a vehicle to carry them in more than a dream come true. It had to be real, nothing could compare to this, dreams or otherwise. Beginning by going through the guns one at a time, he started thinking off in his head just what weapon would be suitable for usage for different circumstances.

"I can test fire any of these weapons as I want?" the question sounded more like a statement as Jason started thinking again. Washu nodded again, slowly this time. "O.k., but how can I tell what does what? I mean, as far as I know, they're all lethal and make really big booms."

"The computer can give you an evaluation of what each weapon can do and what its destructive powers are. There's a small desk against the far wall near the doors to the vehicle bay, it'll tell you which weapons you want just by typing in a few preferences into the tabletop." Washu said as she moved over to the table top and set it up for earthian language. "Also, if you finally get too tired of reading everything on the monitor, you can merely instruct the machine to tell you which are the kinds of weapons you want. Course, that's only if you're lazy..." Washu said as she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

Going back to the door out into the main part of the ship, she turned around and waved at Jason. "Have fun blowing stuff up. If you need help, just ask to open a comm. channel to me. I'll be in my lab doing science stuff you wouldn't understand in the least bit."

Jason heard none of it as the possibilities ran through his head and he never noticed when Washu shrugged her shoulders and left Jason to him machinations. As far as Jason was concerned, His name was the Terminator and all he needed now was the right set of weapons to blow his opposition into itty, bitty, wet debris.

* * *

A week went by as the ship traveled through the darkness of space, heading on it's silent journey to deposit the now alien boy's to their new destination and in that time, none of the crew had been idle. Tom had busied himself by searching the entirety of the ships memory logs that were accessible to him and a few that had ways around, learning everything he could about the ship and the languages stored in the database. Jason had foregone all the handheld guns smaller than the lower part of his arm and gone straight to rifle class, busily destroying test matter after test matter with gleeful abandon. Washu busied herself all the time inside her laboratory which the boys were never allowed inside, and Washu never came out of for any reason.

It was after a week of learning the systems on the ship did Tom finally figure out just how to operate the standard pieces of equipment that told range, distance, size, and finally, potential for self destruction. The monitor had mentioned something that he couldn't understand before and had minimized when it had first popped up, but now assured that he could understand what it read he brought it back up and scanned it for info. The screen came back up with a dull hum and showed to him that something had asked the computers for a docking clearance, roughly the size of a small ship, but with no visible ports for thrust or weapons.

That had only been an hour or two ago.

Checking the internal sensors revealed nothing out of the ordinary, nothing seemed wrong with the sensors either, so he checked for previous movement that corresponded with the time frame of the docked ship. When the computer failed to acknowledge a ship in particular in the docking bay, he scanned for all life forms that were known in the computer terminal to register and identify all life forms on the ship and location. The ship brought up a diagram of the ship and located and Identified Washu and Jason, still busy at whatever had kept them in their places. It also identified himself in the control room, but down the hall in the quarters of the ship was a life sign of unknown origin, and it was giving off some strong power readings.

Feeling a bit bored and wanting to go stretch his legs out anyways, he got up and walked over to his sword, where he had left it by the door. He had been trying to get a handle on his speed ever since he had been 'given' the power and for the week since traveling in the ship, he felt he had done a good deal of testing his abilities to their limit. He bolted down the corridor at a mild trot and arrived at the living quarters section in no time. Having already programmed the controls to designate the room with the power source behind it, he walked to the door and typed in an access code he had found in Washu's computer.

"Very sloppy of her leaving these things around where anyone can pick them up at their leisure..." Tom said as the door processed the code and slid open on silent runners.

Inside the room, the far wall showed outward into space, letting the scrolling of the starscape play across Tom's vision for a moment. The room was dark as he stepped foot into it, and from what he could smell there was something close by, but the darkness hid it too much for him to tell. He slid slowly around the perimeter of the room, keeping his back to the wall as his eyes tried to adjust to their environs.

There was a sound of breathing, sounded a lot like human breathing, and there was another scent in here as well. His nose twitched as a piece of hair floated near his nose and made him want to sneeze. Pinching his nose to keep from sneezing, he idly stroked his sword hilt and moved till the light from the outside starscape came over his shoulder and into the room. He stood still as possible and let his eyes wander the room slowly, keeping his breathing as silent as possible as he watched the shadows for any kind of movement.

The bed moved with a soft ripple and the sound of fabric sliding across another, more physical form slid to Tom in the darkness and his eyes locked on to the bed. It looked as if someone was lying under the sheet, and why he didn't think of that in the first place was stupid of himself. He slid over to the bed and began to pull his sword free as silently as possible, running his eyes up and down the bed. The form was thin but it was shaped like a human near adult size, the only part that wasn't human were the brown fuzzy ears sticking out of the sheet at the top. He pulled the sheet back in one fluid motion then brought the tip to it's throat.

Then he noticed the glowing energy rod pointed at his throat and the eyes staring up at him. All four of them.

* * *

Washu was just about to take her next weapon of mass destruction down to the weapons locker when her alarms in the science room, and she dropped the machine and checked her sensors.

"What in the abyss' name would want to try to come onto my ship?" Washu muttered as her fingers danced across the keypad.

The sensors told her that nothing was out of the ordinary, and it wasn't that someone else had entered the ship. It was the sudden surge of unexplained power coming from the sleeping quarters that had set them off. Bringing the section and room up, Washu rushed out of her room and headed for the bedroom. There was only one thing that could of gotten past all her defenses and never set a one off, only to let herself be known by charging up one of her energy blades.

Even before she opened the door, she could hear the sounds of fighting going on inside the room. Opening the door up, Tom was just rolling out of the way as the girl with rabbit ears sticking out of her hair sent another energy bolt toward his last position. Tom's weapon lay discarded and off to the side, the weapon nearly cleaved in half by a weapon way sharper than any weapon tom had ever seen before. At least the girl hadn't shot toward the windows yet. That would have put a hole in the side of the ship and killed Tom for certain.

The girl was keeping herself from Tom by the only means necessary, she was floating above the floor and the bed she had previously been asleep in. Also she was without her clothes, which was not slowing Tom down in the least bit, which was probably all that was saving him from certain pain. Letting the fight go on for a few seconds longer to observe how Tom would fight under these circumstances, she watched as at first, Tom threw the cover up at the girl, blinding her for a moment, then as the girl took one of those energy rods and formed it from nothing to cut away the cover, Tom jumped up at her with his speed lending him distance to come up off the ground and near enough to tag her legs a few times before falling out of range of her ragged sweeps with the energy weapon.

"Ryoko!" Washu yelled above the noise. "Get down from the ceiling and put some clothes on this instant!"

Both Tom and the girl came to a complete stop.

"Ryoko?" Tom asked as he slowed back down to normal human speed.

"Hello mother." The girl said as she came down to the floor and picked up her discarded clothing. "So you've begun to pick up stray creatures on other planets now? That's really not like you..."

"What I do is not your concern, Ryoko." Washu said with a little annoyance at the girl as she merely held her clothing in a folded bundle that hung down in front of her. "Are you going to put those on or not? You're making my 'guest' uncomfortable..."

The girl turned around to look at Tom. She began to look at him now as not a threat, but as another person she might have to associate with. Even though his clothing had been singed slightly, Tom had managed to keep in relatively good health from the beginning to end. The sword might have been a piece of metal now broken, but she was sure Washu could whip up another weapon a lot stronger than the previous one he had. She looked him up and down, making notice at how he stood in a slightly slumped manner to try to hide something.

Smiling, she dropped her clothes onto the bed and floated over to Tom to wrap around his shoulders and cup his face in her hands in a seductive smile. "You did very well to not get hurt by me. I think you deserve a special present."

Tom's eyes wanted to bug out of his head as she hovered in closer to him, bringing her lips closer to his. Before she could get close enough, Tom stepped back from her, if a bit roughly.

Looking embarrassed, he turned to Washu and asked, "You know this woman?"

Sighing deeply, Washu nodded. "She's my daughter." she told him in an offhand manner.

Looking Ryoko up and down slowly, then looking at Washu if a bit quicker, Tom said, "You sure about that?"

Ignoring Tom for a second, Washu placed her hands on her hips and looked at her renegade daughter. "What are you doing here? Last I heard, you were out trying to become famous."

Going over to her clothing, she pulled out a rolled up paper and showed it to Washu. "What's this?" Washu muttered as she unrolled it and looked at the paper closely. Muttering to herself as she scanned it, she exclaimed in a very angry and disbelieving voice, "You're the #1 space criminal of the known space colonization?"

"Told you I'd be famous." Ryoko said as she basked in her own glory.

"Famous I could accept." Washu said as she threw the paper off to the side, "A criminal is something totally different!"

Ryoko turned away from her mother and acted as if she was bored. "So? I never said I'd make you proud. I just told you that I'd become the most renowned person in the known universe."

"You didn't kill anyone, did you?" Washu said in a matter that left no doubt what she'd do if she got the wrong answer from her daughter.

"Oh, please, mother." Ryoko said as she turned and looked at her mom in a very serious manner. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer."

Washu stared at her daughter for a moment trying to get an idea of what her daughter was thinking. Nodding to herself, she relaxed and pointed at Ryoko's clothes. "Put them on please."

Ryoko went and put her clothes on, if slowly, knowing that Tom was watching since he very well couldn't get past her without getting a full out shot of her body. She chuckled in a very pleased manner and donned the last of her suit. Standing up and stretching, she turned ever so slowly, getting all the kinks out that the fight hadn't worked out yet. Tom blushed even more furiously, as the suit only emphasized all the tucks and curves of her body.

"If I'm not needed anymore, I think I'll go find the kitchen and cook something." Tom said as he made a deep bow to hide both women from his view.

Washu and Ryoko looked at each other as if he had gone mad or something. "Why do you want to cook something?" Washu asked. "We've got so many food replication units on this ship that it would be stupid to cook something up instead of having it created ready for eating purposes."

Tom had an answer ready for them. "Well, since we're going to be living on this planet very soon, I figure we'd better learn how to cook food up, or we're going to learn how to be thieves."

Nodding at that bit of common sense, she told Tom how to get to the kitchen on the ship and told her how to get the ingredients in their raw form from the replicators without them being cooked up. Thanking Washu for the info, Tom super sped from the room and out of sight.

"Nice boy you've got there, mom." Ryoko said as she popped her neck. "So, why's he on the ship with you? Some experiment you have in mind that you haven't told him about?"

"Come with me, Ryoko." Washu said as she made to leave the room. "I'll explain it all to you as we go to my laboratory. I've got another guest on this ship and you're going to take him a new toy."

* * *

Jason had field tested a few of the best weapons he could find on the ship. By far, three rifles, two hand guns, a bazooka like weapon, and a pair of wrist packs were either strapped onto his personage, or laying near by in a pile. He was just about to test fire another weapon that reminded him a lot like a chaingun when he heard the doors open up behind him.

Not bothering to turn around, Jason said, "Brought me a new weapon, Washu? Just lay it right here and I'll get to it in a second."

Holding the bazooka like weapon on his shoulder, he sighted along the side of the weapon and fired the machinery. The weapon made a sound along the lines of a throat clearing and fired a greenish goop down the length of the room to slap wetly against the wall. Watching the slimy substance for a second, Jason shook his head and chucked the weapon on a bigger pile of weapons off to the side.

"That's the third slime gun I've found so far..." Jason said with a little contempt in his voice. "What's the point in making a weapon that only slimes your opponent?"

"Maybe she wants to capture her opponent instead of making him into very small pieces?" Ryoko said as she watched Jason from the nearby pile.

Jason turned around and swung the slime launcher up to his shoulder only after a second.

"Who the hell are you, lady?" Jason looked around her then glanced once or twice looking for Washu.

"The name's Ryoko, and if I wanted to, you'd be dead by now." She followed through with her statement by creating one of her orange orbs in her hand and waving it at Jason.

Jason looked at the orb then shifted his gaze to Ryoko, not bothering to take the weapon down from his shoulder. After a few seconds, Ryoko took her hand away from the orb, letting it dissipate. Even with the weapon or whatever it had been gone, who knows how fast she could reform it and bring to bear on him again. Ryoko never bothered to step toward him and Jason made no motion to set the weapon down.

"You going to keep that weapon up there all day or are you going to make peace?" Ryoko said, placing her hands on her hips and looking at Jason with a skeptical look in her face.

Jason hesitated for a second longer before finally laying the weapon down to the side and dragging his hand through his hair. "You never answered my question either..." Jason made it sound like an accusation.

"Fair enough, my name's Ryoko." She held her hand out to him. The surprise had obviously caught him in an unattentive moment, saying her name just recently.

Jason stepped forward and grasped her hand gently, "Jason, Jason Alltop..."

"You must be the other person my mother was talking about..." Ryoko said as she looked Jason over from head to toe. "You're a pretty stout boy..."

Jason grimaced at the comment but let it slide. Since she looked him over, if was only fair if he looked her over as well. She looked as if she was a frail little girl, maybe 5' 8", yet she held herself as if she was a fighter and used to handling herself in a fight. All the right curves in all the right places, Jason made a mental note that she wore black clothing.

"So, you're Washu's daughter, huh?" Jason stepped back to see if there was anything else to her. That was when two brown rabbit ears popped up out of her close cropped, light blue hair. "At least you're a bit taller than your mother is. I don't have to feel like I'm towering over a woman anymore."

Ryoko chuckled soft and sultry, swaying with a willowy walk over toward Jason to lay a flat palm against his chest and smiled lightly, her golden eyes glinting in a sudden smirk as a force of power suddenly pushed Jason from his feet and made him crash into the bulkhead at the far side of the room. Collapsing for a moment in surprise, he pushed off the wall to help him stand up and look at her in shock only to see that she held the slime bazooka in her hands aimed at him.

"Just for the record, Jason, We Alkairians don't take kindly to such offhand insults like that. Sorry for this..." she smiled and fired a shot off at Jason, which hit him faster than what he could move.

Stuck to the wall, he had the impression that he was under about 500 lbs. of green, wet pudding. He moved his arms a little, trying to pull away from the wall and testing its true strengths, then laid back against the wall for a bit. He tried to take a deep breath then realized that the slimy stuff was going up his nose. In a fit of fear, Jason pulled as hard as she can and with a sudden sucking, the jelly like substance pulled away from the wall, sliding down his body.

Coughing up what little of the jelly went up his nose, Jason thought, "Warm, wet, green pudding like jello."

"Well, you're as strong as my mother said you were," Ryoko said as she walked past Jason's crouched form and touched the wall gently, "You leave a good impression."

Jason coughed a little more at the stuff in the back of his throat and spit it up, then turned to admonish Ryoko when he realized she was swinging the weapon down like a club at Jason. He raised his arm to block the weapon from hitting him in the head, and then Ryoko finished through with her swing and smashed Jason into the floor. The weapon broke down the center and covered the both of them in green goop. Growling in irritation, Jason jumped straight up through the green stuff, leaving pieces of goop hanging from his clothing.

Ryoko popped into existence near Jason, nothing but the clothing and her brown ears still on her. It looked as if she was never touched by the green goop at all.

"Even stronger from what my mother said, if not a whole lot inventive." Ryoko said as she floated a foot or two above the ground.

"What the hell did I ever do for you?" Jason asked, as he stood up and dusted himself off as best as possible.

"Nothing at all," Ryoko said as she chuckled a little bit, "Just gauging your abilities for myself."

Jason was not sure whether she was telling the truth, or just saying it to get him into a false sense of security. "You know, lady. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were seriously screwed up at."

Ryoko merely smiled at him and waved a hand at Jason, before raising another weapon and getting ready to swing it at him.

* * *

The pattern continued on for the next three weeks, Ryoko tormenting and breaking weapons over Jason's head, Jason trying to stay sane from all the abuse from Ryoko knocking him upside the head and testing his durability. Washu was rarely ever seen except when she took the occasional break from her laboratory to go to her bedroom, otherwise she was never seen from her work shop. Tom did nothing more but watch the monitor and study, he even had the machines create replicas of American instruments and attempted to play them as fast as possible.

On the final day of the journey, Tom got a bug up his chimney in the worst possible way. Cooking down in the galley, he had figured out enough of the ship to mess with the rest of the ship all at once. He chuckled to himself as he stirred a pot of yellow goop and noodles while checking the oven from time to time and poking the meat from time and time. He knew sooner or later Washu would figure out that the food dispensers weren't working and Jason would simply call and ask what had happened.

No sooner did he think it than Washu came over the Com unit against the wall. "What the hell did you do to my machines?" He could hear Washu tearing out the guts of some machine as she talked to him.

"I pulled the processor chip out from the main replication unit so that all the food dispensers on the ship don't work." Tom said as he bounced the chip on his hand and into the air in front of his face.

"Well, put it back!" Washu bellowed as she threw something metallic against another thing metallic. "They're yelling for food down in the gun range and I'm too busy to make them anything right now."

"Nope." Tom said and walked away from the Com unit, turning it off as he went to check the meats again. The incessant sounds of a Com call coming in kept trying to pry his attention from the food he was preparing. He let it go for a few minutes until he thought they were properly pissed off, then went back to answer it. "Something I can do for you?" he asked as he keyed the unit

"What do you mean No?" Washu sounded as if she had blown a gasket or two.

"Exactly as I said, No." Tom said and placed his hands to his hips. "This the last night we'll be on the ship, we've been circling the planet now for all of about ten minutes and we're all going to eat a meal together for once before we leave company."

There was silence on the other side of the communication unit for all of about 5 minutes before Washu called back. "As you wish, I'm not going to argue with you." Tom chuckled to himself real fast at the brief break as if she was sighing. "When do you want to meet for dinner?"

"Thirty minutes in the dining hall, and make sure you wash this time, you've been in there for over a week." Tom turned the Com off before he got the rougher edge of Washu's tongue. Chuckling for a brief while, He went and started up the vegetables, some green beans, then called Jason and Ryoko telling them the meal was about ready and to clean up before coming to dinner. He was expecting them, no excuses.

The first ones to come walking through the mess hall doors were Ryoko and Jason, Jason wearing what looked like a flight suit from Top Gun, Ryoko came in wearing something like a kimono. Sky blue all over and the leggings were banded with horizontal stripes ranging from green to blue to black. The brown ears of her compatriot stuck out from the light blue hair that constantly looked like a forest in wild bloom. Washu walked in soon after them, dressed in a black dress, with a single silver stripe running the fringe, her hair held back today by a loose ribbon that hung nearly to her waist.

Taking seats, Washu at the head, Jason to her left and Ryoko across from Jason, they looked at the arrangements on the table that came from regular home dinner tables back on earth. Some flowers arranged in a pot and cnadles to either side of them, plates, silverwear, and cups already awaited them and their food to come.

"Well, at least you're treating it like a special event..." Ryoko said as she ran a finger across the top of her plate.

"Isn't it though?" Tom called from the kitchen as he began to gather the finished meats from the oven and assemble them on his plates. "Last time we're ever going to be together, don'tcha know?" Tom made the last sound as if he was some mom making nice to a non understanding kid.

"Y'mean we're there already?" Jason asked as he turned around to try to get a look at Tom. Tom walked out of the kitchen and made for the table, pork chops glistening with fresh grease that they had just been cooked in.

"Computer...Monitor of orbiting planet, holo-project above the table." Tom called as he placed the food. He clapped his hand and walked back to the kitchen as the computer responded to his command. It brought to life a three dimensional extrapolation. The planet hung above the plants and spun silently for everyone's viewing pleasure.

"Krinas in all it's glory, its recovered well from the last time I was there..." Washu thought to herself as she looked on the copy of earth. The land masses weren't exactly the same but the environments were all the same. Everything except for the animals and the inhabitants could have been an exact copy.

"Nice planet for a bunch of low level humans like you and your friend." Ryoko said as she grabbed hold of a pork chop and began munching hungrily on it.

"Try saying that to this low level human's face and I'll show you just how low level I am, young missy." Tom said flippantly from the kitchen, half knowing she wouldn't go through with it when there was food in front of her. He grabbed hold of the pot of macaroni and cheese, lifting it with a slight grunt, then turned and headed for the table with it.

"Computer...projection off." Washu said as she moved her own hands to begin eating the food brought before her.

The monitor went out with a soft fizz of static, covered up soon afterwards by the sounds of dinner in progress from all around the table. Tom moved back into the kitchen for the final course, the vegetables. He got as far as through the kitchen door when the ship suddenly rocked violently and the sounds of an explosion ripped through the ship. Gravity flipped for everyone as they flew through the air until the ground left them knowing which end was up.

"What the hell was that?" Jason called from underneath the table, his shifting to his hands and knees moving the table from off of him.

"Computer! Status!" Washu screamed and the computer brought up the holo-projection of the ship. A gaping hole of where the command deck used to be now replacing the schematic of the ship. A second violent shaking running through the ship causing them to fly across the room some more and the schematic changed again, showing that the engine ports were now damaged and half of the docking bays.

"Warning! Hull integrity breached!" The computer droned and an update made it change it's voice into a model of severity. "Command decks are gone. Engine room is damaged and proceeding into critical ranges. Shuttles have been destroyed and the escape pod controls are no longer functioning. Angle of descent indicates crash trajectory with the planet within ten minutes. Destruction of shuttle will happen after landing."

"Ryoko!" Washu screamed to her daughter as she righted herself. "Gather Jason with you and anything you can take with you, we're leaving!"

"What are you going to do?" Ryoko yelled out to her mother as she gathered her pet into her hands.

"I'm going down to the engine room and I'm going to manually shut off the engines!" Washu said as she struggled to her feet.

"You'd never make it!" Tom yelled as he came out of the cluttered kitchen. "I can get there faster and safer than the rest of you! I'll go and do it while the rest of you escape!"

Jason got to his feet and braced himself as another shudder ran through the ship. "You'd never make it in time! Don't be crazy!"

"You sure you can get there without too much trouble?" Washu said as she got over to him as best as possible.

Tom nods. "I've studied the schematics of the ship the entire trip, I have the best chance of getting there."

Jason didn't like it and tried to voice his opinion, but another explosion back near the crew quarters took the choice away from him as he tried and failed to fight off Ryoko's hands while she lifted him into the air and to the other side of the cabin.

"All right, there's no time to argue and we've got even less because of this argument." Washu said as she righted herself once more. "There will be a terminal half way up the central pillar in the room, that pillar is the engine and the panel will be an override shunt that will cause the shockwave to feed on itself, multiplying the power till it rips it's constraints, across the way is a warp door that'll take you somewhere on the planet. Wherever you end up at, make your way to the palace of Roshtaria in the land of Floreshtica. Say my name to the gate guards' and they'll let you in."

Tom nodded at all this info as he sped through his thoughts and the plans of the ship once more in his mind. Saying a quick farewell to her, he sped off down the rocking corridors for the back end of the ship. Emergency doors kept coming down in front of him as he whipped by them, sometimes nearly getting caught by the doors as they closed. Ramming his shoulder into the engine room door, the sound of a bone snapping was drowned out by the sudden drone of the engines as they built their energies once more to launch the ship forward to its certain death.

Tom was dazed as he stood up from the floor, his shoulder nearly healed back together into one piece. He adjusted his sword at his side as he looked upward and gauged the distance to the panel on the pillar. Guessing more than actually knowing, Tom forced his legs to jump at a super speed, arching him up and over the railing by an extra 10 feet necessary. He landed and grabbed hold of the railing before flipping off from another sudden jolt to the ship, pulling himself ever closer to the pillar.

Opening the only panel visible on the pillar, the green light and red light of a regular on/off switch shined at him in the half gloom of fading power as everything in the room began to get drained off into the power shunts nearby for the propulsion. "At least some things are straight based and typical." Tom thought to himself as he looked at the button and traced it for a brief instant. Hoping his friends had gotten off the ship in time, He pressed the button and jumped toward the wall across from the panel.

Only to bounce roughly on hot steel and metal.

Stunned, he sat on his butt as he stared up at the wall. "No door! And the engines already priming to blast again!", he stood and felt along the wall wondering if he had heard Washu wrong as the sound in the room died out to nothingness but his own breath in his ears. Turning to the engine and pressing his back into the wall as if to seek comfort or escape, Tom thought to himself, "Wonder if it's at all possible to resurrect when your blown to atoms?"

To his eyes, there was a flash, and an immense pressure pushing him back into the wooden doorframe, then there was fire and finally, blessed darkness.

* * *

Bwa ha ha ha ha! Chapter Two posted. What's that you say? It says Chapter Three up there?

The fic says Chapter Two, I don't care what the site says it is. sticks out the deadly tongue Anyways, the ship spirals out of control while Jason, Washu, and Ryoko escape from the ship, leaving Tom behind to try and save the planet by himself. Did Tom do it in time, or will there be repercussions? If they managed to make it to the surface intact, what kind of people will they find there ahead?


	5. Chapter Four

Let's see, chapter a day, I should have this all set up in little under a month. This chapter starts on Krinas (El-Hazard world) as the people of our story get scattered across the surface. If Tom has survived (why wouldn't he) he has been seperated from his teammates and will have to survive on his own.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the effort that was put into writing this. (Actually, none, but no one's concerned about that) Tom and Jason are the only people I own.**

* * *

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**Chapter 3**

**The Wonder of a World at War**

Jason and Ryoko hurried as best as they could through the bucking, rolling that the halls seemed to go through as the ship motioned through it's last fits and stutters. Washu was close behind them at this point, having grabbed only her coat and her wits, pushing Jason to go even faster.

Ryoko hovered in front of the nearest W.C. door, the door itself thrown open, a forest in full bloom beyond the threshold. "Hurry up! Who knows how long till Tom throws the switch!"

Jason stopped shy of the door. "Are you sure that there's a door in the engine room for Tom to escape by!" He yelled over the noise to Washu.

"Yes, now hurry before we can hear ourselves in the afterlife!" Washu yelled as she pushed him toward and through the door.

The sound of the ship bucking and exploding around them cut off as they passed through the door and closed it behind themselves.

"Get down and away from the door!" Ryoko yelled as she launched herself back into the air and away from the door at a faster speed than a bird taking wing.

Jason and Washu rushed around a tree 30 feet away from the door and crouched down behind it, tucking their heads down to the ground. Within seconds, the door that once said W.C. blew toward them in a humongous explosion that rent fire and metal around them for moments before the doorframe and fire disappeared into nothingness.

Peeking out from between his arms, Jason looked back up at where the doorway had been at, but tucked his head back in tight as an explosion lit the sky up in a fiery explosion the likes of which Jason had ever seen. Washu stood and patted herself down of leaf like foliage and moss and Jason rolled over and scanned the sky. He watched as the metal from the ship burnt away in the sky in a fiery rain.

"Well, hell." Washu said as she looked up and watched all her life's work burn up before it hit the ground. "At least we have our lives, although where we are right now..." Washu scanned the forest slowly, "is in a lot of trouble."

"What the hell happened up there?" Jason asked as he rolled over to look at Washu.

"If I had to take a guess, the ship was pelted with little meteorites. You do know what meteorites are, don't you?" Washu looked around the forest, still patting herself down.

"Of course I do," Jason said as he sat up and tried his joints one at a time, "But I doubt that meteorites leave holes that large in a ship if they were anything like the size of a few hundred miles"

"Normally, I'd say your right." Washu said as she donned her coat, Ryoko coming in to hover a few inches off the ground behind her mother. "Tom messed around with the wiring on the ship, so who knows if the damage was real, or an over extrapolation of what the damage really was..."

"I don't think that a ship rocks and shudders like that with only light damage done to it, Mother." Ryoko said as she crossed her arms over her breasts and eyed Jason hyper critically.

Washu twisted her mouth up as if tasting something bitter. Jason looked around the small glen for signs or sounds. "Where's Tom?"

"Somewhere else if he survived..." Washu said as she scratched at her hair and looked around. Pointing to a lone spire of rock, Washu said, "If the distance is judged right, I'd say he would have appeared on Mount Muldoon over there, and if he's wounded, he's really in for it."

Jason looked at the lone mountain through the trees. "Why would he be in trouble?"

"Well, the women on Mount Muldoon are fanatical. They may have great powers, but being on the mountain makes you either a candidate for the next priesthood, or a man." Ryoko said as she helped Jason to his feet. "If your a man on Mount Muldoon, that's as good as sacrilege."

"We never had the chance to test out Tom's healing powers." Washu said as she shook her head and began looking around the clearing once more, getting a better view of it. "Who knows how much damage his body can take before it stops healing the damage that's been caused to it."

"So you're saying..?" Jason said as he rounded on Washu.

Around them from out of the cover of the trees and bushes came armored men with six appendages. They clustered around them in a visible wall of offense, pulling crossbows out from behind themselves with pronged tips on them that could punch through a tree trunk a few feet thick. None moved except a lone warrior in purple lacquered armor who came toward them, the armor overlapped itself in a very strange fashion and two appendages that stuck out near mid section seemed to have gripping pincer like hands on them

The language the lead person spoke was one that no human mouth could pronounce in his days if he tried for many days. The golden eyes where the only constant about the bugrom, all ranging from height and girth, to color as well. If Jason had to guess, they were like specialized for certain jobs and tasks, almost like ants. It had to be the golden antennae that stuck out from their foreheads that made him think that.

"What the hell is that?" Jason asked as he placed himself in front of Washu.

"That is the bane of all humans on this planet, it's called a bugrom. A loathsome creature that is a kind of half breed human and bug, they follow the tendencies of bugs by having a hive and a queen bug. They're also flesh eaters and love the taste of freshly killed animals, humans especially." Ryoko said as her hands cupped before herself and a ball of luminescent orange energy.

Ryo-ohki, the rabbit in Ryoko's hair popped out of the hair to look at the bugrom. Ryoko came forward, lethal energy held tightly in her grasp. Before Ryoko could unleash the powers held within her hands, the rabbit jumped from her head the considerable distance over to the bugrom's head where it promptly turned around and laid down on its dome like head. The golden eye slots made the now rabbit adornment look almost comical. Reaching up to its chin, the bugrom took its face off.

"I hate the smell of these things..." A grizzled warrior behind the mask spoke in a soft, deadly voice.

"It's nice to see you, too, Lans." Ryoko said as she smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder.

Washu patted Jason on the back as she came around him from the left while Jason stood as if he was still prepared to attack anyone who challenged him. Washu came around and shook the man, Lans, hand while his warriors dressed in the skins of the deceased enemies came from the woods and took their face masks off to the viewing of their friends. The looks of tired happiness and hope flitted across the eyes of the younger men, but those who had seen many years of fighting, where their hope was just getting to see the next sunrise. These men had inevitability in their eyes, the same look that Tom's eyes got sometimes.

"We must continue these good greetings later." Lans suddenly said and the guards eyes became hunted as they averted their eyes from looking at them. They returned to eyeing the forest around them as if they were worried about being attacked. "We must go before the bugrom pop up around us and kill us once more."

"They're attacks have gotten worse?" Ryoko said as she looked around as well.

"Much worse. They're a stone throws away from the castle now." Lans said as he as he signaled to his men and began marching off in a direction. Washu and Ryoko followed him, but Jason stood and looked around the forest around them a little longer. The warriors and the girls walked a bit more forward into the woods away from him until they realized he didn't follow them at first. Lans turned around and addressed him. "Why is it that you do not follow us to safety, boy?"

Jason looked around and crossed his arms in front of himself. "What about my friend, Washu?" Lans looked at Washu as she turned around and looked at Jason.

"Jason, there is no chance of following your friend at this moment at this time, but once we have found out what the current situation is we can begin looking for him." She said as scientifically as she could, but no matter how she thought of it, it was abandonment, plain and simple.

Jason didn't like it. His friend was out there in the middle of the unknown of God's back end of the galaxy, lost out on the wrong end of a planet and no friends to watch his back. So he can't be killed, so what. He could be captured while asleep and tortured forever, considering he can't die. True it was a worse case scenario and Tom always talked big about not being able to be held, but still...

Something blurred from above and landed on Jason's back, slamming him to the ground, and his breath from his lungs with a grunt. The sounds of someone or something scuffling with a man came from above Jason's head then something warm splashed down onto the back of his clothes. Grabbing the leg of something, he pulled hard to one side and got to his hands and knees. His hand came down on a ripped arm that had just recently been pulled off it's owner's body, the owner laid down beside it with its throat slashed out by a very sharp object. The object, in fact, was just getting back to its feet and looking at Jason.

"What the hell is that?" Jason asked as he got to his feet. The answer didn't come fast enough as the creature jumped into Jason, jagged claws aimed for his heart.

The claws were sharp enough to punch through the armor that they have always come up against, which is normally harder than your average flesh. Jason's flesh was a bit harder than any known armor, as the bug like attacker soon found out. The claws of the creature nearly snapped in two from their impact against his chest, Jason's punch to it's head nearly breaking that as well.. Within moments, the creature lay dead on the ground before Jason's feet, a look of disgust and wonder locked onto his face.

"Are you alright, boy?" Lans said as the warriors and the girls came over to the corpse and him.

"The name's Jason, Sir." Jason said as he rubbed his fingers to where the bugrom creature had struck him, wondering why he wasn't killed. "I'm fine, it seems. Although, I can't say the same of your friend there." Jason nodded toward the downed warrior.

"Of course he's fine." Washu said as she came over to the bug and began eyeing it over for what kind of damage it had inflicted upon itself before Jason had killed it. "He a lot more different than you or me, Lans. He could take on an entire army before he would finally tire out."

Ryoko came over and checked out Jason herself, Although Jason kept trying to get away from her fingers and eyes as they scanned his body. "At least I don't have to worry about him tripping over his own feet and getting a scrape." Ryoko said a bit sarcastically, trying to get past his defense.

"Leave me alone, Ryoko. I said I was fine." Jason said as he stepped back once more.

"Well, fine. See if I care about you then." Ryoko said, a bit hurt, then turned away from Jason and crossed her arms.

"We must hurry now. Every second delayed means more bugrom showing up." Lans was already starting to move away this time at a faster pace than before. "Bugrom never travel by themselves and next time, we'll all be slaughtered."

Ryoko and Washu followed as before, but Jason hesitated a bit, looking down at the bug corpse at his feet. "This is the creature that is the enemy of all humans on this planet, and Washu was bringing us here for our own safety." Jason thought to himself. "Just what have we gotten ourselves into this time?" Leaving the corpses behind them, Jason hurried to the group as they departed the glade for the safety of the woods.

* * *

He felt like he was floating, caught between unreality and reality. He felt solid something underneath himself, his face against something and his body feeling as if it was heavier than metal. He forced his eyes open slowly, angry lines of fire running from head to toe through him. He could still see through his eyes, and he could see that he was getting to his hands and knees, although it felt more like he was pulling himself apart at the seams. He began moving forward one hesitant movement at a time, his hands and knees scraping against the hard rock.

All his senses began to slowly come back into reality for him, the heavy feeling still wanting to pull him down against the ground, the sound of his own panting coming to his ears and the smell of slow sizzling bacon. His brain kept thinking bacon, how it would taste really good right about now, but something else in his head kept saying something else, as if it knew exactly what was going on but was not letting the rest of the brain in on the secret. He could hear something else, but again, his brain didn't connect the two before he actually saw it.

His hand came down on a black soft toe boot and the boot moved out from under his hand before he realized what it was. He hesitated at seeing something else other than his hands moving in front of his eyes, so he shuffled back the direction that the boot moved. When he got the boot back into his line of sight, he stopped and studied it.

"It's a man. Looks like its pretty tore up." The voice was a bit sarcastic as if it didn't really care whether 'the man' was important or not.

"What do you mean it's a man?" A second woman's voice said as it came closer, her breath slightly winded.

"He's been burned pretty badly, looks like something a volcano could do to a person if they were still alive after the fact." There was a shadow across his vision, the girl must of been leaning down over him to cause the shadow.

"What's going on over here? Shaela, What did you do to that poor man?" A third person came up behind the first two, she sounded like their mother.

"I didn't do anything to him, I found him this way." The shadow above him and turned around to face the third person.

"Oh, and I suppose that he climbed up this mountain on his own power and miraculously survived the metal pieces sticking out of his back?" The sound of their fighting was beginning to nag on his ears.

"If you ladies don't mind, we have a dying man here and we need to take care of his wounds before he does pass on?" The second person seemed to be as aggravated as he felt.

Tom tried to get to his hands and feet, his groans must have got their attention as their argument didn't continue immediately. He got to his hands and feet, but very painfully, his back already beginning to ooze blood once more, now that he could see the red trail wrapping around his body to his abdomen.

"Let's just put him out of his misery." The girl named Shaela commented. From the obvious silence, it was not an option.

Tom chuckled sickly, blood bubbled up into his throat and he spit it out onto the ground below him. "If you're going to kill me, please make it quick. I'll really tired and I don't feel like laying in my own blood anymore." He was surprised that he got all that out in one try.

Tom became confused at the sudden lack of gravity. As he watched, his hands came free of the ground and so did his knees. He also watched as little droplets of blood began to rise upwards from the ground and float slowly upward, but before they got to his body, they were flung back towards his feet.

"I've got his body up, now if there are no more problems, then let's get what we came for done." The second voice had stepped closer to him now.

From his elevated position, he could now see the first and second women's legs. The first named Shaela had boots just above her ankles, the rest was tanned skin. The second woman had sandaled feet of homemade quality and only one leg in a pant leg, the other was bare to past his vision. A third set of legs came into view but these were all but hidden behind the clothing that she wore, an aquamarine color of a skirt that reached down to her ankles.

He felt hands touch the back of his head and what he could only perceive as water washing through his body. The sound of a woman hissing and the sudden tug on his head told him that whoever had touched him and something happen to her from his touch. Tom tried to pull his head away from her and did nothing more but have her fingers grip harder into the sides of his head.

"If you keep moving around like that, you're going to bleed to death. Please, she knows what's she's doing." The voice of the second woman was near his ear. Her voice was the sound of the wind, a light, tantalizing sound that both calmed and reassured him.

"These wounds are extensive, it's a miracle that he's survived as long as he has." The third woman's voice muttered to herself and yet to everyone. "These things that are embedded in his skin are literally cooking his body to temperatures that would roast a duck in moments."

"So you're saying that we shouldn't waste the effort." The first voice sounded satisfied by this reasoning.

"Of course we're going to try, what is wrong with you?" The third voice sounded disgusted at even the thought of what had been suggested. The first voice didn't answer so the third continued. "Afera, try to keep him with us. Healing his body but having his mind being gone wouldn't be a good thing."

Tom watched as a rivulet of blood trailed down along the bridge of his nose and drip downward to the ground. He felt so heavy, even his eyes felt like they wanted to fall to the ground with the blood. His eyes moved over towards the half panted legs in green as they seemed to kneel down next to him. He watched, gasping on blood and air as the woman's face came into view.

Her face was silhouetted by raven colored locks, green eyes that shimmered like emeralds stared out at him from a cream colored face. A boyish look to her face, but not from her kneeled form, she wore a full body suit of green nearly as deep as grass, but lighter than her eyes. Her lips were flush and red from coloring? He couldn't tell except to say that they were full and lush, with a slight pout to them.

She smiled at him sadly, the pain she thought he must be feeling unbearable. "How do you do, Sir? My name is Afera Mann, priestess of Muldoon Mountain."

Tom stared at her for a moment as his brain tried to process what she was saying to him. He felt two hands run their fingers into his hair on the back of his head, but it was a dim sensation as was the rest of his body.

"A-are you still with us?" The woman, Afera, asked him as she raised her hand up to touch his cheek.

Tom flinched his face away from her hand. "I am still here, but I wish I wasn't. I am being nothing but a rude guest, showing up uninvited and a mess to boot." Tom spoke all this hoarsely, a little dampness in his lungs making his voice sound like he had swallowed water. "I would stand and present myself to you properly, but I'm afraid my legs are not listening to me so good right now."

"Don't irritate him, Afera." The third voice said near his head, the hands holding his head delicately. "It's hard enough getting a reading on him without him moving around so much."

Afera didn't respond to the voice, but continued to look up at Tom's face as Tom settled back to his original position. "I'm not so stuck up to demand that someone in your condition to keep to etiquette, so please relax and let us do what we can for you..." Afera went to raise her hand again toward his face and Tom shifted his face away once more.

"I'm sorry, priestess?" Tom spoke the last word with a bit of hesitation, not knowing if he had heard the word properly. "I'm just not on a first meet, first touch basis with anybody." He smiled ruefully for a moment as he continued. "I am the sort however that will shake hands with another..." A cough built up into his lungs and rushed out his throat wracking his body with pain as blood and fluid came out with his breath.

Afera reached back and took his hand in hers for only a moment before she removed it with a look of pain. Looking at her hand, she was starting to develop a blister where her finger had gotten caught in his grip. She looked over at the person above Tom's head, a look of concern on her face.

"I know, it's nearly unthinkable that he should be able to do that on mere touch." The voice sounded as if the task was almost too much to believe. "Shaela, you're going to have to do nearly all the work of removing the pieces from him."

"Can't the great priestess of water and healing save his creature before her with her miraculous abilities?" The voice was nothing short of sarcasm and spite, hatred unhidden but unknown to Tom as to which person it was directed at.

"Get over it, Shaela. He dying and either you're going to be an accomplice, or your going to save him. Choose a side..." Afera pointedly looked over Tom at the person on his right, the look nothing but coldness and disapproval.

The sigh that came from her and the hesitation said a lot to Tom. There was a moment that no one did anything, and then he felt as someone's hands began to pull something out of his back, pieces of metal he assumed. They hit the ground behind the tanned legs as if tossed haphazardly behind her. When they hit, they half bounced, half splattered against the ground showing which pieces were hotter than the other.

"Do you remember what happened to you, Sir?" Afera was looking back up into his face, trying to see if what they were doing to him was doing more harm or not.

"Please," Tom said as he shook his head back and forth, "call me Tom." She smiled at him and squeezed his hand gently, which he couldn't feel. He thought back to as to what had happened a few moments before and to what kind of excuse he could make. "Let's just say that instead of staying down, I thought it was better to see if it was possible to be a brick wall and stop the pieces with my own body."

"Great, a comedian." The woman to his right said as she tugged on an extra hard piece of metal that was nearly burnt together to the bone and flesh around it.

Reaching back to his waist, Tom pulled free what was left of the sword that was at his waist and moved it into view to the girl on his right. "Use this. I don't like the feel of tug o' war being played with my back."

The weapon was snatched out of his hand after a moment's hesitation and the feel of warm wetness flowed from his back. Tom shuddered softly to himself, remembering the first time he was placed on an operating table when he had been younger. He felt that this was a more dangerous kind of problem as they worked longer and longer on his back.

Finally, his ruined blade hitting the ground with the rest of the engine, the girl stepped back and the sound of something igniting came to him. "That's the last of it that I can see. He's all yours, Miz, and good riddance, I say." The sounds of footsteps walking away from him echoed in his ears, blood loss making his vision blurry and his hearing faulty.

Afera shot a look of disgust at the back of their retreating 'sister', and then turned her worried gaze back up to Tom. "I'm sorry to say, Tom, that what is about to happen can't be changed. I wish I could help, but your fate is now in Miz's hands." She put on a brave face for him. "Don't worry, she's the best healer in all of Roshtaria."

The hands gripped his head softly. "Rosh what?" he managed to say before the sense of coldness rushed through him, and a scream was ripped from his body before his consciousness was taken away from him.

* * *

Jason, Washu, and Ryoko had made it to the canoes along the river without anymore incidents. Riding in the boats, they headed back upriver as fast as they dared without causing too much of a disturbance. Jason watched the flora and fauna pass by as Washu and Ryoko got the low down from Lans as to what had all transpired in the lands since they're last visit.

"The bugrom's have done something we feared they would do." Lans said as his face took on a sad cast to it.

"You mean they joined forces with the shadow tribes?" Ryoko said, not liking the implications of what that might mean.

"I'm afraid so," Lans said as he returned his gaze back to the shoreline, looking for any enemies that might try to attack them, "The queen of the bugrom have made a pact with Galus, of the shadow tribe. They now attack us in concert, first the bugrom forces to take out the main body of our armies, then the shadow tribe warriors to finish off the offshoots or the wounded. They leave no survivors if they can do so."

Washu shook her head and muttered under her breath. Jason glanced at her as if wondering what she was saying before he turned to look as Lans. The sadness at the edges of his eyes was something Jason was not accustomed to looking at on a man that could have passed as his father. He respected that Lans had fought so long and had somehow survived all that he had seen, but he could have no idea as to the things Lans had actually seen or done that had caused the sadness.

"How much have they conquered?" Washu spoke to Lans after a few minutes.

"We have lands about a few iles from the outer walls of Floreshtica, but anything outside that is bugrom and shadow tribe." Lans said sadly, his gaze closing over slightly in hard rememberance.

Jason's gaze swept forward once more, past the front line of the boat to a glimmering archway that was beginning to come out from around the line of jungle. The glimmering light rebounding from the polished stonework shined back at them as if a beacon of hope, of rememberance, of life untainted. Beyond the bridge, the walls of the city and the gateway to the city stood resolute, men at arms patrolling the causeway on top of the wall. Within the center of the city itself, interwoven between the honeycombed network of towns stood the central crowning piece, the castle and home of the royal family.

"There it is..." Lans voice was one of a loyal warrior returning home after a hard battle, "The crowning piece of our hope. Roshtaria, the last outpost of humanity, and at it's center, Floreshtica's Castle, and the royal family of Pronelius."

* * *

He dreamed once more.

He dreamed about a fight, no, a battle with creatures from the twilight zone. There were creatures that couldn't exist unless he had a great fear of bugs. The bugs came onward over the cliff face he stood near. The color of the bugs coming over the side of the cliff contrasted with the foliage that was behind them on the horizon, their gleaming eyes and yellowish antennae bobbing over and over again as if they were being the eyes instead of the glistening spheres on their face.

A blast of water streamed outward as if shot from a hose, blasting the bugs from off the sides of the cliff and out into the air toward the ground below. Tom looked around at his hands, a sense of confusion washed over him. He was dreaming, he knew he was dreaming, and yet the dream felt too real. Another sense of Deja Vu?

He shook his head in confusion and he reset himself into a fighting position, his front foot arched in readiness as he prepared to kick once more. His clenched fists came up in front of himself as he gazed over his knuckle and down his thumb at the nearest bug. The wind blasted against his bare chest, what was left of his pants whipped raggedly at his body. A super strong gust of wind blasted a bug into the air to his left launching it at gale force speeds into a group of it's own people.

He looked to his left and saw the green dressed woman in her weird suit, the shine of bright green coming from her belt clasp. He watched as she gestured and another blast of wind answered her call, knocking another bug attacker off it's feet and into another group of bugs that had gotten close to the tower. He looked to his right, from where the blast came from just as another blast of high speed water blasted another wave of bugs from off the edge of the cliff again.

She stood regal and majestic in her silver wrappings of cloth, a mix of blue and silver enwrapping her in what had to be an all too clinging suit. Her natural curves made her look a water nymph too long from her home, her hair looking to be a bit on the water side, a brownish blue that made all her hair seem as if a light purple.

She pointed to another cliff line in her sight, and a shine from her extended finger lit a hue of blue as deep as the ocean. From out of thin air coalesced water within moments and shot out at her pointed target, hitting with a lethal accuracy that knocked its intended foes back toward the ground that had once held them.

He walked, no blurred, around the building to another woman, her skin golden hue from exposed heat, which was evident from when she lifted a glittering gauntlet of copper and a red jewel on the back of the hand. From the gauntleted jewel came a fire intense enough to melt the very rocks around her, yet seemed not to burn or even touch her in the slightest. Her clothing matched her element, burning crimson one piece dress that molded and enfolded itself to her as she leapt and danced about her targets, boots of strong and sturdy leather supple enough to hold their grip to the dirt but able to move her any way in any direction as she wanted.

The bugs kept coming to her, like moths drawn to a burning candle, her hair as fiery red as the look in her eyes. She danced back and forth between the bugs and herself, keeping just out of grasp as she let loose fiery bolt after fiery bolt into her enemies at close range. She never noticed as a bug moved over her, literally jumping over her and turned around to attack her back. There was a quick flash from the bug as it attacked the undefended girl, stabbing deep into her back.

She hesitated slightly as it dug into her back, then reached back and placed the flat of her hand to the bug's somewhat flat chest. From every crack and slot on the bug's body, the steaming liquid of the bug's body hissed outward and bubbled as it hit the air. Its death scream shrieked once before the bug exploded from its own body heat.

The girl stutter stepped backwards away from her attackers who now rushed the wounded woman. She raised her hand futilely, trying to ward them off with what little strength remained her.

"Do you want to save her?" A voice whispered in his ear. From out of this nightmare rose a black image, deeper than night, colder than death. Its power beyond that of a human man's mind as it reached out for him...

A scream escaped his throat.

His eyes snapped open and he sat up violently scaring the attending nurse off her seat. She glared up at him as if what he had just done was deliberate. He stared around his room, shaking off the feeling of dread inside of himself. A small, stone worked room, most likely used as a spare from the smell of it. The linen's under leg and body smelled of newness, the entire room smelled of newness, and of women.

"Why did I just think that?" He thought to himself.

"The least you could do is say you're sorry!" The spat anger reminded him that there was another person in the room with him.

He looked over at the woman and realized he already knew her. It was as if she had stepped out of his dream and become flesh and blood, the woman in the red body suit glared up at him from the floor as she worked herself back up to the foot stool she had previously occupied. She readjusted her red skirt and stared a venomous hole through him as he continued to stare at her body.

"Excuse me?" Tom spoke slowly, every part of his body hurting in places he thought he had removed long ago. Or did he?

"Well," the girl crossed hers arms in front of herself and her ampleness, "The creature can speak after all."

Tom stood up to stretch a little bit, or at least attempted to stand, but one look from the she-devil, he thought differently and just felt across his sides. He was wrapped pretty tight around his body at all but his legs. His back itched terribly, so he must have been healing up like crazy to itch that badly. He breathed as much in as he could and was immediately sorry for it as his old chest wound tightened up on him.

The girl looked at him skeptically as his face tightened up slightly in pain and discomfort. She made no move to help him out and as far as she was concerned, that's the way she wanted it to be. "You can't be complaining that much. Miz healed you up so you shouldn't be complaining at all."

"Yeah, sorry." Tom grimaced and tried to turn it into a smile. It made him look more like he was trying to bite into something really tart. "Excuse me for asking, Miss?"

"That's priestess to you, bumpkin. Priestess is all you need to call me." She smiled smugly.

"Er, right..." Tom was getting the impression that he had really burnt her, so to speak, "Priestess, I was wondering what had happened to your other two companions."

Her eyes narrowed at the implication of other Priestess'. "So you remember the other girls, then, do you?"

"Actually, not a whole lot, truly." Tom reached backed and scratched his head a little bit. "I remember pain, and being really tired, and I remember looking into the eyes of an angel..."

The stool skidded and bounced away as the priestess stood up quickly. Her eyes were alight with that same fire that he remembered from his dream only this time he was the intended target of those eyes and they were none pleasant.

"I need to attend to my holy duties." She was colder than ice when speaking. "If you need anything, it will be brought to you when we visit. You are not permitted outside of this room under any circumstances."

He nodded to her, the implication of doom and a painful death getting across quite clearly. Seeing that he understood, she turned around and went out the door, slamming it behind herself. Tom sighed as he leaned back and stretched, popping his back. He sat up and looked out the window at the sky and the ground and marveled at how they seem to meet, always knowing that they held each other in their places.

He wrapped the blankets around himself and walked to the window sill, sitting on the stones and looking out at his surroundings better. He was up on a mountaintop, and it appeared to be surrounded by a jungle of some type, very thick and overgrown green, but no sign of civilization. No skyscrapers, no roads, no smog, no planes, no technology except for a floating giant metal sphere in the air that looked to be a mechanical eye for some giant monstrosity.

He wrapped the covers around his neck a little tighter and stared at the sky and clouds as they floated by. He could almost imagine that he was back on earth, the clouds so white and the sound of wind so soft to the ears, almost as if he were dreaming. He closed his eyes and smelled deeply, inhaling the scents of his surroundings, breathing slowly and even for just the shortest time, seeing what could no longer be for him. His eyebrows slumped down, something that didn't belong in the current smells he knew wasn't apart of the smells around the room.

His eyes opened and sitting next to him on the same sill was the woman in green, her eyes shining with the reflected light from outside, making her green eyes dance. Tom leaned back from her quickly and smacked his head into the corner of the wall behind himself, letting go of the neck of the covers and grabbing his head in pain.

"Are you alright?" The green eyed woman said as she leaned close to Tom. Tom leaned back again quickly and this time pinched his fingers in between the wall and his head.

"I-I'm alright, thank you for asking, Priestess..." Tom said as he stood up and away from her, his chest beginning to show as the cover began to slip free. He turned his back to her and grabbed the cover closed once more.

"You shouldn't be out of bed right yet, you haven't had time for your wounds to heal yet." He felt her fingers rub into his hair at his new hurt, and goose bumps sprung up along his body all over the place. It nearly felt like electricity dancing across his body. He stepped forward and shivered involuntarily once.

"I heal pretty quickly for a sick person, Priestess. I'm not like a normal guy anymore." Tom's voice quieted as he spoke. He turned and smiled softly to her instead. "I could use a bath if you would be so kind."

"Well, I guess I could get you into the bath, if we could slip by priestess hard ass out there..." The green eyed woman said as she smiled with mirth.

"Your talking about the red dressed woman, aren't you?" Tom said with a 'been that, done there' look on his face. He looked at the door as if expecting Satan to come walking through it at any time.

"Yeah, Shaela has something against you, I'm not sure what it is at this point, but whatever it is, please try not to take it at face value." The girl, Afera, walked to the door and peeked out into the halls. Waving that Tom should follow her, she disappeared around the door into the building beyond.

Tom stepped up to the doorway and looked out into the halls beyond. Afera was walking down the corridor to his right as if she had nothing to worry about, but Tom stayed in the doorway and looked back and forth up and down the halls. The girl looked back at Tom and waved him after her, then disappeared around the far corner.

Tom followed, (skulked) after her, trying to stay out of the way of any other eyes that were around to see. The building that they walked through had many paintings and hangings along the areas that they walked by, doors upon doors that they walked past. Curiosity did stir in him, but the longing for a bath took precedence over his current interests that he passed.

He finally walked out of the building's back entrance and watched as Afera winked and disappeared into the building before him. He could have swore that he heard giggling before she went into the building, but it must of been his imagination. Hiking the covers up around his knees, he shuffled and hopped across the hot rocks toward the squat, stone building. Stepping in past the sheet blocking the door, he walked into what could be described as a sauna.

It was nearly dark and hotter than a wet jungle, just what the base of the mountain must feel like. Shucking off the cover, he felt around and looked for a towel, but felt nothing but the heat and the dampness. His foot brushed across the floor till he felt a fabric of some type. Gripping it with his toes and lifts up whatever it was then took it in hand and smelled it. As his eyes adjusted, he could smell the woman strongly on it and could see that it was green or a color close to green.

"Her clothes?" Dumb thought, but he thought it none the less. Reaching out before him where the clothes had been at, his fingers brushed against what felt to be a wet tarp thrown across the doorway.

He pushed it open a little bit, enough to see past the edge and into the room. Steam poured back toward himself as he tried to gaze through it, the sounds of water splashing from behind the tarp getting a tad louder.

"Aren't you going to get in as well?" The voice of the green eyed woman called, muffled through the tarp, but audible none the less. He felt nearly all of himself blush a warm red color at the thought that had crossed his mind. Before he could think twice about it, he turned and returned back to his room on the third floor.

"What have I landed in and am I going to be able to somehow get out of it?" Tom thought to himself as he laid in the bed, the covers half laying over him. He looked out the window at the clouds beginning to roll in, their dark puffy look signs of rain to come. He felt like those clouds out there, close to breaking and unable to put back what would soon come out.

* * *

This is the last Chapter leading up to Enemies Arisen, I will be reposting that here when I have properly type edited it. Everyone, if you have read up to this point, will not have to read the seperate chapter independently if you can at least wait for one day. I did make mention about something called The Armor or Darkness, that will be making its appearance in Chapter Five. (basically two chapters)

Enjoy your reading.


	6. Chapter Five

Here it is, second posting (though edited a lot better than the first) of Enemies Arisen. (hereby renamed Chapter Four)

I may or may not take down Enemies Arisen once it reaches about the same number of hits as the first posting, depends on how I feel about it then.

Disclaimer: Tom and Jason are the under the sole ownership of the author. (No one wanted them anyways and I got them cheap at auction) All other characters, places, references, ect. are strictly owned by the companies that they were produced from. No permission was allowed to use them in the way the author has used them, nor is any money being made off this story. (It sucks so bad, I should be paying my readers) **

* * *

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**Chapter 4**

**Enemies Arisen**

As they came around the corner, the walls of the city came into view from the jungle. In all his history, Jason had never seen anything that rivaled it's beauty. The white walls stood out as the city's only defense, higher than the city itself, the cliffs that held the city upon it's plateau were the perfect natural defense from attackers. The only way into town was across the lake, below the city, or across the stone pathway that led to the massive thirty story doors or back to the wilderness beyond.

Within the city at the center of the town itself, the palace rose above it all, the heart that gave life to the city and hope to the people. Four towers to the corners of the palace and the palace grounds, the central tower rising above it all even higher, with the house standards waving in the wind as the breeze took them aloft. The palace walls stood only about 15 feet high, but the town was so expansive. Jason's gaze ran the length and width of the village slowly, observing tranquil beauty that should be preserved and protected.

"Finally, we have returned home to the city." Lans said as he stood in the boat. "Welcome travelers to the city of Floreshtica, Capitol and last Bastion of mankind!"

Jason shifted back and forth slowly in the boat as the shadows of the city gates passed over them. A passage cut into the stone work and hollowed out that led deep within the infrastructure of the rock face where the boats could dock at safely from the view and range of attackers. Edging up to the wharf and reaching up to the wharf workers, Jason was the first out, looking around at the people and the warriors surrounding them.

"Looks like your gunning for a major fight on your hands, Lans." Jason said as he watched as one contingent of men marched past them in full military splendor. The strangest part of it to Jason's reckoning was that they carried long poles with metal tips on them, no guns or blades adorned their armor.

"We have been at war for some time now, my friend. This is standard practice for us now." Lans said as he was the last man out of the boat. "Please follow me this way, I will take you to the palace." Lans turned from them and headed for stone worked stairs in the face along the far wall that led up the entire cave entrance.

Jason kept looking around as they walked up the stairs though there was nothing to look at except the faces of his friends. Ryoko looked determined to be going wherever they had to go, Washu looked reluctant, Lans looked ... wearied, as if doing something both tedious and something that had been done over and over again. Then he looked at the furry thing Ryoko kept referring as a cabbit and the only thing he could discern from it's impish face was that it was...a cabbit, or something.

They stepped clear of the stairway and into a courtyard of which Jason could only gawk at. Plants of every variety and color danced before his eyes in the soft breeze that blew across the ward. The building behind the plants was even more astounding to him once he was able to move his eyes away from the leafy foliage and onto the real beauty. The stonework had a polished look to it, as if the surface was made of pearl, towers and parapets reached for the clear blue sky as if in defiance or in pleading with whatever holy divine power this beauty fell from. The metalwork that was on the castle were the only out of place thing on it, marring it's beauty with it's scars of mankind bolted or worked into the stone at intervals where necessary.

"Things haven't changed much around here." Washu commented with a soft voice of remembrance. "It's like returning to a fond dream again."

"As long as the royal family is housed in this building, it shall never change too much. The castle is our pride and the royal family, it's soul." Lans sounded invigorated now, as if just seeing the castle could put life back into his body. "Please, continue to follow me. I am sure Rune will want to see you as soon as possible."

Jason looked over his shoulder at Lans and the ladies he traveled with. They followed loosely around Lans and considering that they were in someplace that could get him into trouble quickly, he nonchalantly followed them into the building itself.

If the outside of the castle was anything to talk about, the inside was even more astounding. The halls and chambers within the castle looked to be made of the same stonework. In fact, on close examination with a corner leading into a colonnade, the seam was indeterminable, which to Jason was impossible. He began thinking that this castle was indeed the fallen part of a holy artifact or for that fact something which had lived with God at one time or another and was struck down and turned to this glory of man.

Finally as they walked through a very large door and into the grand audience hall, Lans kneeled before two large pillows and everyone followed suit, Jason making his kneel look very much like falling over. A guardsman at the entrance clacked his spear butt against the ground a few times, before announcing the royal family approached. Jason couldn't see much from where he kneeled from, but he could hear the rustle of soft fabric clothing and the soft drawn breath of people trying to enter in with great dignity and regal bearing.

"Lans, who have you brought with you from the battle line." The voice was tempered and reserved, sounding as if there was a wellspring of knowledge kept back for judgments sake.

Lans answered solemnly. "My Liege, I bring before you tiding of rejoice, for I have here before you the honored scientist Washu and her daughter, Ryoko."

The woman's voice was motherly politeness. "I see a third person before us, Lans. Do you mean to say that you do not know who this boy is? And yet you bring him into our personage as if he has always been a trusted member of our court..."

"Your ladyship," Washu broke in, "the boy you speak of is in my custody. I have brought him here to this place for, because of my actions, he is now homeless and the last of his family. I have brought him here to You and Yours to beg of you to take care of him, to give him shelter and a place to call his own."

"We are not a charity service for you, scientist Washu." The man sounded a bit upset, but Jason still did not have the thought in his head that he should look up at the King, if King he was. "We are in a state of war as of now, in case you haven't noticed the quarrels of those around you. We cannot accept another hand and mouth to feed and clothe as of this moment."

"Forgive me for sounding as if I expected otherwise from you. I had merely hoped that you could offer him something more than what I could ever hope to offer him." Washu said, backpedaling on her recent plea for a little mercy.

"If he is to stay with us, he will have to join the military of Our kingdom." The woman's voice was just as hard as the man's now. "What can this boy provide other than another grave to fill?"

Jason stood up and looked at the royal family, feeling that he needed to speak for himself than have another speak for him. The King was the elder equivalent of Lans in the face, and underneath the accoutrement that he wore, it appeared to Jason as him he was about as strong as Lans as well. The Queen, however, was in exact opposite proportion from the King as was possible. Soft in all the right places, pleasing to the eye, but only in the way that regal ness and royal bearing were appropriate on any who was of the blood of kings.

"If it would please you, I could demonstrate just what my abilities could do for you in a battle effort." Jason turned his eyes down after glancing at the King, but most certainly, the Queen. Blond hair as if spun from a sun beam, curvaceous to the point of godliness, blue eyes that seemed to draw oneself into them for them to swim. A more beautiful woman he had never seen, unless it was a supermodel or a star from a movie.

"And how will you demonstrate for Us as to your fighting prowess?" The King queried as he leaned forward and glared at Jason.

Jason thought for a moment, then walked over to a suit of bugrom armor and placed his hand to it's chest. With a single breath, Jason pushed hard onto the chestplate and with a resounding crunch, the chestplate shattered into fragments. The gaurds immediately went into a defensive position, lowering their lances and appearing out from the pillars close to the King and Queen. Jason walked toward one of the gaurdsmen and took the it edge of the lance from the warrior before his eyes, snapping the end into a rough arrow size. Jason made a flourish with the pointed tip at the King and Queen before he thrust the tip at his throat and felt the tip snap again, this time, with a metal creaking.

Jason handed the piece of metal back to the previous owner, and then took his place back at the back of the group and stood there, crossing his arms before himself and watching. The King motioned for the guardsman to bring the broken piece of spear point to him and examined the bit carefully, The Queen watching Jason instead of the bit that was mangled before her husband.

"It would appear," The King began with carefully chosen words, "that you can perform near miracles easily. I will ask you now, what will you do with these powers? Is there anything that can stop you?"

"As far as it has been established, My King," Washu said as she stood and turned slightly to look at Jason, "He has no limits, and he cannot be crushed, mutilated, or killed. He can, however, be poisoned only through what he eats."

Jason looked at Washu with a surprised look, and then thought about it. It's true that there had always been external tests, but just how durable was his insides as well?

"I have made my decision." The King said as he relaxed and sat backwards, placing his hands to his knees. "I will accept you into my army, on one condition. We are sending out a expedition to Mt. Muldoon on one of our fastest air ships with a 'special' envoy. You will go with this envoy and take Washu and Ryoko with you. Lans will accompany you on this venture as he was chosen to lead it. When the envoy has arrived safely at the tower of muldoon, and returned to us, unharmed, you will be accepted into our army."

With that, the King and Queen rose from their cushions upon the dais and stepped through the curtained antechamber beyond, the Queen the only one looking back and Jason would of sworn was looking at him.

"Well, now." Washu said as she dry washed her hands. "That went better than what I could of hoped for."

"It has been that way for many a day now, I'm afraid." Lans said as he stood and wiped at the dirt that had managed to get on his clothes from the carpeting. "The King and Queen see enemies everywhere now, and they feel the wound of every man that falls to our enemies keener than the wounded man. This war cannot end soon enough, and yet I do not believe we will win it."

Ryoko crossed her arms under her breasts and looked at Lans. "So what can you tell us of the current residents of the tower?"

Lans began to leave the hall and make for the outer ward of the castle as he began describing the current priestess'. "The current water maiden is one Miz Myshtal. The land from whence she came was destroyed by some unknown form of disease. Only she was not killed by it."

"Strange that a disease affects everyone but one person." Washu said as she stroked her chin.

"Stranger still that only that village was affected by the disease. No other village came down with the contagion." Lans said as he shook his head to clear his thoughts from the dead.

"What about the others?" Jason inquired, trying to keep the conversation going.

"The wind priestess is known as Afera Mann. She has excelled in her powers where other priestess' of her ability have only scratched at the surface of the true power of wind." Lans voice took on a little awe, and it seemed to Jason that his eyes glazed over a bit.

"Do I sense a little infatuation, perhaps? Maybe a crush on someone, Chief Guardsman?" Ryoko teased at Lans, whose face turned a bit darker than what it was, before it could turn back to it's original color. Ryoko grinned evilly, almost slyly before belly laughing at Lans.

"It's nothing like that. Just an observance of one's power and a respect for one's abilities." Lans said, his voice exuding mortification.

"Can we please stick with the current topic at hand? I'd like to know what to expect from the last priestess before we actually get there." Washu said, giving Lans his escape from embarrassment.

Lans inclined his head towards Washu in thanks, then continued. "The final priestess, the priestess of fire, is known as Shaela Shaela, and I have never met a woman who so hated men in all my life. It is appropriate that her element is fire, with so much anger inside of her."

"Aren't you over exaggerating a bit, Lans?" Ryoko said as if trying to goad Lans again. "All women have a dislike for men sooner or later."

"This woman dislikes men all the time." Lans said as he looked into Ryoko's eyes. "It's as if she has a personal grudge against every man in the world for merely existing. The only person who is allowed to set foot on the top of Mt. Muldoon is the envoy, Rune."

When they walked outside, Jason looked up toward the sky and instead saw the undercarriage of what he could only explain as a flying yacht. A boat the size of a private yacht floated above his head on no engines or vents, struts or energy field that he could see, it was merely there. A crew of people under the ship was loading up all sorts of hand weapons and armor, clothing and food into the underside of the ship on ropes and pulleys, moving the cargo from the ground literally up into the ship.

"What the hell?" Jason softly muttered in barely concealed amazement.

"Astounding, isn't it?" Lans marveled at the ship in question. "The King and Queen's private ship, loaned to us to travel out to Mt. Muldoon and back without having to traverse the woods and the dangers of the woods."

"How is it doing that? Floating in the air?" Jason walked off to the side to get a better look of it. From what he could tell, transparent sails hung above the ship on a mast of opaque crystal. The sails being made of maybe some animals shed skin? Otherwise, that would be the only obvious difference between a real yacht and a flying yacht.

"I couldn't answer that for you, My friend." Lans said as he came up next to Jason and observed the trim and form of the ship itself. Clean and white, seeming to be made from an organic metal, if a tree could be made from metal. No anchor and no ropes other than the ones coming off the side for cargo and the rope ladder for climbing onto the ship itself. "We never made anything this scientific. We found it by accident."

"You found it?" Jason asked as he looked over at Lans.

"Legends have it that a long time ago in our planets history, there was a very highly advanced scientific guild somewhere on the western part of our continent that made many technological wonders and achievements." Lans said, his voice swelling with a pride Jason wasn't sure he had ever known. "That was before the armor of darkness came to this land and sent it spiraling toward it's own destruction." Lans voice faltered and his eyes seemed to mist.

"The armor of darkness?" Jason had a sort of skepticism in his question.

Lans smiled wistfully and patted Jason on the back. "All a long time ago, my friend. Come, our journey to the tower awaits us." Lans led Jason toward the rope ladder and the deck high above.

Washu had made mention before about Tom, if he was alive, would of appeared somewhere near the place called Mt. Muldoon. Wishing silently, he hoped his friend was there waiting for him.

* * *

The trees were nothing he could have hoped for and everything that he had wished for. He laid below in the roots of a tall tree and looked upwards at the sky and the sounds of the wind as they blew through the leaves in the tree. Tom sighed softly and felt the lethargic pull of sleep as the comfort of his surroundings pulled at him. This is what true peace and contentment must be.

"Are you going to lie there all day, or are you going to help me with gathering the wood?" The snappish tone of the fire priestess broke him out of his happiness and back into reality.

Tom looked up and toward where the fire priestess was bust chopping at a tree, trying to cord it for better firewood. He had volunteered to help out with the chores around the tower only because it was better than being a prisoner in the bedroom they had set him up with. He got up and walked over to the felled tree and eyed the sweating form of the priestess of fire.

Soft and tough looking even as she worked, she had a persistence to her face that screamed defiance with every act. Her red clothing, body tight today, accentuated every spot that was both a luxury to look at, and a torment to have thrown in his face every time she blew up about him ogling her like some demented pervert. He really couldn't figure this woman out and for all intents that was fine with him.

"If you're so tired, would you mind moving out of the way and letting me get to work now? You've hogged up this tree for way too long." Tom stood near her and waited for her to answer, crossing his arms underneath his chest and watched her a bit longer.

Shaela was huffing and puffing from all the exertion by this time. The sweat perspired down her face as if it would never end and the angered look on her face seemed to him as if she was angry because the tree was here for her to cut up. She glared darts at Tom and took a few more swings at the tree before letting the axe slip from her hands and sighing softly as she moved out of the way. Picking up the discarderd axe, Tom began to cut into it with all the fury that Shaela had previously shown it. Wood chips flew up and away from the sections that the axe blade bit into with every swing, some hard enough to bite into the skin.

"Well, at least you're good for something." Shaela muttered loud enough for Tom to know that was an undisguised insult at best, or she was too tired to care one way or another.

"Yeah," Tom said as he took another swing into the tree, "All men are good for are getting underfoot, lying, and drinking till we can't tell the difference between day and night." Tom threw back at her, as if wanting to throw it in her face that what he was saying and what he was doing were in direct opposition of each other.

Shaela made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat and got to her tired feet, slowly. "I'm going to go wash some of this sweat off." She pointed in a general direction towards the sound of water. "I catch you peeking at me and I'll do more than just kill you."

Tom merely nodded, not deeming to point out to her that if they wanted any wood tonight for the fires at the top of the mountain, the tree needed to be finished.

Glaring at Tom once more before turning her back on him, she wearily made her way back into the woods towards a nearby pool of water. She came into the clearing, the water shining and clear, as if a pure tap of water from the creator's own lips. Kneeling down by the side of the water, she began to wipe at the water on her face and at the sweat around her neck. Feeling that she wasn't getting nearly enough of the wetness from off of her, she glared back the direction of where she could still hear the tree being chopped and began to discard her clothing.

She undressed quickly, unencumbering herself from her clothing and lying them to the side, only donning her gauntlet long enough to immerse it in the water before putting it with the rest of her clothing. The steam rising up into the air from the pool from the brief contact of the gauntlet still impressed her every time she used it in such a fashion. She could never take the gauntlet for granted, its powers always amazing her every time she used them time and time again.

She slipped into the water and relaxed at first with the sudden heat that she had immersed herself in. She knew she could take far hotter than this, but sometimes it was the little things after a hard day's work that made the small things all the more enjoyable. She swam lazily and kept an ear to the sounds of the axe cutting away at the tree, gazing back toward it only when the sounds of cutting stopped, then shortly resumed on the next section. She wasn't sure how long she had stayed that way, not long from her supposition.

As she started to come out of the water, she had the feeling that she was being watched. Her first thought was of Tom gazing at her with his disgusting gaze while she was nude, but that was quickly placed out of thought as she could still hear the sound of the axe chopping away. She looked for her clothing and found them almost immediately, but the gauntlet of fire was missing from her garments. She looked around the clearing one more time and this time let her senses observe everything in a general sense, not in a perceived sense.

She heard it underneath the chopping sounds, feet rustling along the shore line, light as a humans step and very sure of itself. From out of reality came forth a blue skinned warrior with white hair. A perverse mockery of an elf if Shaela could ever know what an elf was, this creature seemed to pop back into reality as if stepping out of a dream into a nightmare.

"Poor, defenseless fire priestess." The shadowen mocked her with a sneer as it dangled the fire gauntlet from one of its hands, showing off it's prize to it's soon to be victim. "All alone in the woods without her trusty powers. Now nothing more than a little wench with airs of pretension."

Two more shadowen appeared the same way as the first, these holding knives that bordered on swords. They eyed her with lusty hunger in their eyes and sneers of sickening joy pasted to their faces.

"You'll never take me alive, shadow spawn." Shaela sneered at the one that held her gauntlet, defying him as hard as she had defied Tom earlier.

"Who said anything about alive, priestess?" The first one scoffed shortly then placed the gauntlet behind his belt as the other two warriors went in after Shaela.

Shaela dived for the deep end of the water, swimming with everything she had. She was causing a considerable amount of noise, so she looked over her shoulder at her attackers. Impossibly, they were standing on the water, striding toward her faster than what she could swim. She dived under the surface, trying to distance herself as much as possible from them. Staring from under the water back up at the attackers, she could see them waiting for the moment that she would rise back up for a breath of air, and indeed, she would have to rise soon.

Her lungs were already beginning to burn with the need to breathe, the exertions from the tree earlier taking a bigger toll on her body now than ever before. She paddled and swam in one place, trying to keep her movement to a bare minimum as she waited for the inevitable death by drowning to come on her. She watched as one of the shadowen splashed into the water from where they strode, then the second seemed to do the same thing, a cloud of redness coming from their bodies as they began to sink toward her.

Shaela took her chance and swam away from them, toward the other shore as fast as she could, rising long enough to get some more breath into her lungs before reaching shore. When she got there, the corpse of the third shadowen was waiting for her on his face, the blood was running down his back and into the grass.

The fire gauntlet that he had previously held in his belt was no longer there, it was on top of her clothing which had been moved to near the water side where she was coming out at. She looked up and around her at her surroundings for the other priestess', but there was no sign of anything, not even Tom who was still swinging away with the axe from the sound of it. Donning her clothes as fast as possible, she rushed back to the tree where Tom was cutting at.

Tom looked up at her as she rushed back into his line of sight, her breath was short, her clothes still clung to her from where all the water was still on her body. From what he could tell, something had clearly scared her enough that she had rushed back to see if he was alright.

"You ok?" Tom asked her as he left the axe in the tree.

"You weren't attacked?" Shaela gasped as she looked around the surroundings that Tom had been working in.

"Unless you count small flying insects being attacked, no, I'm fine." Tom said as he walked around the last piece of tree and sat on it, looking at Shayla. Tom brushed away at a strand of hair that had gotten over his eyes, his brow as dry as if he had just began work. The tree now was totally corded down to the roots. When Shaela had left, they had still over half a 50 foot tree left to chop up.

"How long was I gone?" Shaela asked as she looked at the sky where the sun was just rising to mid day.

"Bout an hour, I would assume." Tom said as he scratched at the thickening beard on his face. "I was so busy cutting this thing up, that I'm not really sure."

"We need to get back to the tower." Shaela said as she pulled the axe out of the last cord of wood and handed it to Tom. She began walking back to the mountain before he could pick any of the wood up.

"What about the tree?" Tom said as she walked away from him, then he loped after her, trying to catch up to her.

"We'll get it later, just hurry up and stop asking questions already!" Shaela was extremely agitated. The shadowen had nearly caught her and were killed by some unknown power that she never had a chance to look at. The priestess' weren't around and Tom wasn't attacked, which made no sense to her at all. She needed to get back to the tower above and see if they were alright.

Within moments, they were at the foot of Mt. Muldoon.

"So, how do we get Afera's attention?" Tom asked, looking at the crest of the slope above.

"Like this." Shaela said as she pointed her gauntlet at the ridge line and called to the fire. Near the top of the tower line, something bright caught on fire and glowed with a bright orange color. Within moments, the orange was changed to a bright green and from off the side of the mountain came the priestess of wind.

Landing in the clearing from a soft updraft that had left her aloft, Afera looked at Shaela's concerned face to Tom's confused face. "Is something the matter?" she asked as she adjusted the skin tight jump suit with only half a leg on one side.

"I was nearly killed by shadowen back by where we were cutting the tree up." Shaela's statement of fact placed a crease of worry in Afera's face and a worried gaze along the rim of the trees.

"But you're alright?" Afera said once she was sure there was no one else going to come out of the edge of the forest. She placed a hand around Shaela's shoulders and looked toward Tom.

"I'll be better once I'm inside the tower." Shaela confided to her. "Something out there killed the shadowen off before I could see it. Something killed them off before I had a chance to drown."

Afera looked at Tom with a more considering eye before saying, "I'll take you back up to the tower then. Tom, would you please begin to gather up as much wood as you can carry so we can be prepared for tonight."

"No problem. I'm sure my face is enough to scare off all the smart animals in the woods." Tom said as he turned around and headed back into the woods. An arrow came streaking out of the woods and nearly took Tom in the face when Shaela turned around to make a snide remark. Tom grabbed it out of the air and broke it with a casual plucking motion, then threw the ruined arrow to the ground.

"Tom!" Afera said as both she and Shaela took places in front of him. Shaela glanced over her shoulder at Tom then the broken arrow he had caught out of the air.

"You were lucky, pale skin!" A cynical voice cried out from the edge of the woods. "Luck will only get you so far when we come to kill you."

Tom brushed in between the priestess' and moved forward ahead of them. "Then why don't you come and end my luck for me?" Tom called to the woods ahead of him and threw down the axe he had been holding in his other hand.

Tom heard the muttered voice of Shaela and something along the line of ignorant and stupid. From out of the woods came a shadowen boy, probably just turned an adult from Tom's judgment. He carried himself with a swagger and an arrogant cast to his face. Tom turned to the girl's and asked them to leave them alone for the time being. Afera was firmly against this.

"He's going to kill you! You've got no idea what kind of power that guy has!" Afera said, pleading her case to him.

"I can take care of myself." Tom said, smiling toward the two ladies. "Besides, if he had wanted me dead, do you think he would have come out of the woods himself?"

Shaela shook her head and made another comment about idiot men and snorted. Afera merely nodded her head and stood back from Tom.

Tom turned toward the shadowen and walked toward him with a slow step, keeping his eyes on the boy and at the forest's behind him. The boy sneered at Tom and pulled it's sword from its side sheath, aiming the point at Tom and moving slowly toward him in a short evading circle. Tom crouched slightly and stood his ground, merely watching the boy stalk him.

"I will pierce your soul with this weapon and send you into Vhazra khtram, white skin." The boy sneered even more, if that was possible.

"Less talk, more action, child." Tom muttered as he watched the hand that held the weapon. The boy's face crinkled in rage and lunged at Tom, pointed sword guiding itself toward his chest.

Shaela screamed Tom's name as it seemed to everyone but Tom that he was simply not in front of the weapon anymore, but to the side of it. His hand wrapped around the child's wrist and with a motion of spinning, the shadowen went flying without the sword in his hand. Tom picked the sword back up and pointed at the boy as he sat up and tried to pull a dagger from its belt.

"Take this message back to your leader." Tom said as he held the tip toward the boy's throat. "Should he try to come and attack the priestess' while they abide here, he will find that I am a force that he will soon have to worry about more than the priestess' ever were." Tom glared down at the now defeated foe and pulled the blade tip back from the boy's throat.

The shadowen warrior stood and felt at its own throat, scowling hate at Tom with force. He turned and started to step into the woods when from the foliage around him, arrows launched outward, stickling from the child and turning into a pin cushion. He never had the chance to utter a scream before he was riddled, falling backwards and to the ground. The sound of feet moving stealthily away from him was a good indication that the message would be delivered to who led those that had attacked.

Tom looked sadly down at the poor soul and shook his head, then turned and looked at the priestesses. Afera had a mildly surprised look to her face, finally getting to see what he could really do, if only for a little bit. As for Shaela, she had a somewhere between appreciative look on her face to a sullen glare to her. Tom made a bet that she was upset that he had survived, but also glad that they wouldn't get yelled at by Miz for letting him get killed.

"If you ladies don't have a problem with it, I'll go and get the wood back here for later tonight." Tom didn't even bother to wait for an answer from them as he turned around and headed back toward the downed tree.

"Wait for us, Tom. We'll come with you...won't we?" Afera looked over at Shaela with a skeptical look.

"Yeah, yeah, we certainly can't go back without it." Shaela said sourly and fell into step behind the two. She watched Tom ahead of them, keeping the sword out as he took from the dead body the sheath that was meant for the sword in his hand, quickly strapping the sheath to his waist before he got back to heading into the woods. His step was slow and languid, his movement was that of a carefree person, but his eyes watched the surroundings with an almost underestimation of his surroundings not having an enemy hidden behind the nearest shrub. He was acting as the fool only a moment before, now a person who could kill as carelessly as the average seasoned warrior.

"Keep staring like that and I'll begin to think that you like him..." Afera teased in Shaela's ear. Although her voice was low enough only to be heard by her and Shaela, Shaela blushed slightly.

Shaela looked at Afera in surprise, who was grinning slyly, then returned her gaze forward, where now Tom had turned his head around to look at what the women were talking about. Shaela blushed furiously and glared at Tom. "What the hell are you looking at?"

Tom didn't answer as he turned back forward and continued to step toward the wood they had cut loose. Shaela looked after Tom and to the woods around them, but to Tom more than he deserved. "What was that that he did to that shadowen?" Shaela thought to herself how he could move that fast. "Is it possible that he has the ability of the elements of theirs, or is it something else?"

When they got back into the clearing, Tom immediately began picking up the cut pieces of logs and limbs, and then took his coat off and wrapped more logs up into it. Afera and Shaela took little slings from around their hips and wrapped what they could pick up as well. Shaela picked up a fairly large piece of log, more like a stick and looked at the back of Tom's head. Thinking for a little bit as she hefted the stick, she slung it at the back of Tom's head.

Tom never saw it coming and the sound of wood hitting off something suggestibly harder than wood rebounding off a surface. "Ouch! What the hell...?" Tom reached back and held the hurt spot that had just received the gentle caressing of the wooden object. Tom looked up to see if it fell from on high, then he looked back at the person immediately behind him, Shaela.

"What the hell are you looking at me for!" Shaela looked outraged that he was thinking anything about her, and Tom turned his face back around to the wood and shook his head. As he began to pick the wood up, Shaela could feel the heat coming from her cheeks and was glad he didn't look any longer than what he had.

Shaela went over to the axe enbedded in the tree trunk and pulled the blade free with a little effort, making small muttering remarks about big oafs being too strong for their own good. She went to shoulder the blade when something warm and wet splashed up onto her cheek when the blade came free.

Dropping what she had, she wiped her hand across the spot and looked at it. The smudge of the red blood was still slightly warm, if not as warm as it started out to be. Looking confused at the axe for a moment, she looked down at the spot where the blade of the axe had been enbedded. There, near the bottom of the axe cut, lay what could still be seen as fabric. The same fabric as the shadowen had been wearing around the lake, and the newly dead one back at the edge of the woods.

She looked up and around seeing that she had been left behind, Afera and Tom still able to been seen, but not by much because of the foliage. Tom had been the only other person who had been down there with her in the woods, and the only person she could think of who could move faster than her own sight. She hefted her burdens and tromped after Afera and Tom, intent on questioning the boy.

She caught up on the tail end of the conversation that Afera and Tom had been having.

"You'd still protect her though, wouldn't you?" Afera was questioning Tom about something that had to do with her or someone else.

"I'd try to protect you and anyone else if I had the power to do so." Tom said without bothering to turn around and face Afera. His voice sounded cold and distant, but the words were still a comfort that any normal person would take to heart. Shaela bristled at the idea of having protection from this Man.

"That's not answering my question." Afera said, trying to badger Tom into an assent.

"That's the only answer you're going to get out of me." Tom said and snorted through his nose softly.

Afera shook her head and breathed softly from her mouth. "Ok, let me try it from another angle." Tom nodded assent and Afera chose her words carefully. "Let's say, for instance, that one of us was about to be killed off from an unseen attacker, one that we couldn't defend ourselves from. Would you kill him?"

Tom tripped on something and bit back a comment.

"Say for instance that, for any reason, any one of us were unable to defend ourselves..." Afera continued as if not seeing the stumble from Tom, even though they had passed the spot that Tom had hit and nearly fallen at. Afera had not stumbled, and Shaela made sure to notice that there was nothing to stumble over.

"It'll never happen." Tom said gruffly. He readjusted his supplies and trudged onward. Afera giggled softly and kept up with him, but gave up the teasing.

Shaela glared at Afera's back, knowing exactly what she was trying to do to him. Although she didn't appreciate the teasing, she did wonder whether her guess was correct, and she couldn't ask him now the way Afera had made him.

Afera looked over her shoulder as they came clear of the woods. "Well, well, it's about time you made it back to us. Did you get lost?"

Shaela adjusted the satchel attached to her belt and the axe she had resting on her shoulder. "You two leave me to hoof it on my own and left me to carry the wood and axe at the same time. What the hell do you think I was doing! Taking a bath?"

Tom looked back at Shaela and eyed her up and down. Shaela slung a sneer at her observer and looked away, crossing her arms. "Can we hurry this up please, Afera? I would like to go home now..."

"You know the routine, Shaela. Supplies first, people second, unless there's an emergency." Afera said in her best no nonsense admonishment. Shaela scowled but handed over her supplies to Afera, who strapped on the wood to her satchel. Tom handed his over a little slower than Shaela did, but once done, he stood away from both the women and lay down in the grass.

Taking the lion's head clasp out of the satchel on her hip, she attached it to the buckle on her waist and immediately summoned up a blast of wind to lift her upwards. Shaela stepped over to the prone form of the man as he continued to stare upward into the sky.

"Enjoying the view?" Shaela sneered down at Tom while his eyes still lingered at the sky.

"Enjoying it even more now that you pointed out the obvious." Tom said lightly and sighed, a look of boredom on his face. He closed his eyes to satisfy the wicked bitch. He didn't look at the disgusted visage of Shaela as she sneered even more. "Something I can do for you, or did you want to be a parasol for me?"

"I want to know what you were doing while I was off taking a bath." Shaela crossed her arms and settled in to wait for an answer.

"I was working." Tom said, not bothering to open his eyes.

"I think your lying." Shaela waited patiently, although patient for her was tapping her foot and trying to keep her temper under control.

Tom opened his eyes, a look of not so under control patience gazed up at Shaela. "What do you want from me, huh? Do you want an oath of fealty or something? Do you want blood, or better yet, an appendage or two? Is that what it's going to take to get you off my ass?"

Shaela breathed slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth. "I want what passes as the truth from you for a change." Shaela was looking darts down at him.

"Fine, what do you want to know?" Tom closed his eyes again and adjusted himself slightly, placing his hands under his head.

"I asked you the question already!" Shaela spoke through gritted teeth and was nearly ready to spit tacks.

"I told you already. I was cutting wood." Tom opened his eyes and looked up at Shaela. "If I do remember right, you told me to continue to cut wood till you came back, am I correct?"

"Then what about the dead shadowen that attacked me around the pool of water?" Shaela stood outraged now, legs slightly parted and her clenched hands down by her side.

Tom eyed her legs all the way up to where they disappeared behind the low cut skirt. "You were attacked?" Tom looked up to her face, concern finally starting to crease his face before Shaela's boot came down on his face.

Tom's hand wrapped around Shaela's ankle as the foot came down with a bit of force. The sound of a muffled shout came from under Shaela's foot. Hate rained down from Shaela's demeanor as Afera floated back into the area near the mountainside.

"Shaela, What are you doing to him?" Afera rushed over to give Shaela a shove, which happened to make Shaela step fully onto Tom's face.

"I'm teaching him to stop looking up women's clothing!" Shaela was furious, her hair was nearly bristling and her jeweled headband was shining a ruddy red color.

Tom rolled onto his hands and knees, holding his face in his hands. "Did he do anything else but look?" Afera crossed her arms over her breasts and looked at Shaela. With Shaela looking like a caught fish, gaping and all, Afera continued. "If that was all he was doing, you should be grateful, or had you recently forgotten what he did to that shadowen."

Shaela looked even more pissed to be needled by Afera. She turned away from both Tom and Afera, reaching into her satchel and pulling out her artifact, a ruby studded gauntlet of red leather. She jumped upward along the mountain face, and from around her flames sprung into life around her, enhancing her jumping height as she moved upward along the mountain toward the top. Afera watched the slowly escaping and slightly offended Shaela head up the mountain and reached down to try to help Tom to his feet.

"I'm sorry about that. She can be a pain sometimes." Afera said as Tom wiped away the little trickle of blood coming from his nose.

"I'm getting to learn that on a first person basis." Tom stood up and looked up the mountainside.

Afera looked up as well, then wrapped her arms underneath Tom's arms and pulled him close to her. "Well, shall we go?" Afera looked up at the top of the mountainside.

Tom looked down at Afera, which wasn't hard considering she wasn't that much shorter than him. "Is it really necessary to hold me like that?"

Afera smiles softly as she looked up at the sky, her own eyes beginning to shine a bit brighter with the power she was channeling. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing..." she smiled coyly. The wind gusted around the both of them and they rose skyward to the warmth of the tower above.

* * *

He walked down an open hallway, his tread didn't reverberate in the surrounding he was at, nor was there any light anywhere. He walked forward across darkness, not the starless kind, for that was impossible here. His step was a light brisk one for his heavy gait, the soft rustling of his robes was the only sound that disturbed this non existence. His green pupils shined from his pale face, the black irises peered through the small pince-nez that held onto his nose as if glue.

Ahead of him opened a glass doorway that spanned 30 feet tall, the glass had not been there before him as he had traveled down his unseen path and it did not seem out of sort for him either. Stepping through the doorway, he stood still in a transparent room and kneeled down in the middle of the room. The doors swung close behind him as he kneeled before an absence of light. The darkness seemed to suck in all light around it, making it seem to shine with something other than light.

"Report your status, Kagato." The feminine voice echoed from everywhere and from nowhere from within the darkness.

The man named Kagato grabbed hold of his grey clothing and kneeled, his head tilted toward the black void. "My lady, all goes according to your grand design as you have foreseen. Earth is in ruins and no human life can now threaten you in your coming plans."

"What about the scientist, Washu?" The ethereal voice inquired, giving no impression of emotion, only what can only be called detachment.

"Her ship has been dealt with as your order implied, my lady." Kagato's head tilted a bit lower. He eyed the shoes that barely peeked out of his robe.

"You did not do what I ordered, Kagato." The ethereal voice commented with no sign of emotion, not even distain. "She is still alive and so is her cargo." The form of unreality coalesced into a form of a woman of unageless beauty. She moved forward, her body moving in a parody of life that it could never attain until she stopped barely in front of Kagato.

Gesturing with her luminescent hand, Kagato jerked upward to face the woman who was floating in the air, his skin looking as if he was being held by his chin. "Be aware of this, my servant. You are to do everything that I have told you to do, or you will return back to where I found you. Do I make myself clear to you?"

Kagato looked into her eyes and saw nothing, not an iris, not a speck of light, not even hope, there was nothing there, cold and emotionless as it had always been with her.

"I...erk...I...obey...my...Lady..." He managed to gasp out to her.

Kagato fell limp and sprawled to the floor in a heap like a puppet whose strings have been cut as the woman made a motion with her hand. "Then go and do what must be done, my slave. Do not fail me..."

Kagato straighten and stood before her. Bowing once, he said, "It shall be as you foresee, my Lady." He disappeared from vision to everything, even to his Lady, traveling between places in an instant.

"Go, my creation. Make sure you kill He who is The Weilder of Darkness."

* * *

You'd be surprised what kind of Motivation a person can be forced into with the right pressure. Wanna take a guess as to who the woman is that was strangling Kagato? The priestess have been established and if you haven't read the first posting of Enemies Arisen, then you'll never notice the editing I've done to this chapter.

Rune with her entourage are now on their way to recruit the only help that may be able to stop both the Shadowen and Bugrom forces from destroying Floreshtica. Tom being with them is in for his own time while dwelling in their tower. (the sinner) For those of you who have been looking for a fight, I promise you, fights aplenty in the next chapter. Enjoy your days, and T.T.F.N.


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter Five is now fully proofed over and edited. This chapter will mostly be fighting, especially near the end of the chapter for those of you who enjoy the violence and dismemberment. Also, The Armor of Darkness makes its appearance at last. Things will not be so good for the possessor, as you will find out for yourself soon enough.

Disclaimer: I do not own the right to use any characters from the El-hazard/Tenchi series, nor was I given permission to use them. I was not given the right to use places, instances, or events that may seem familiar to said series. I own only Jason, Tom, and The Armor

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**CHAPTER 5**

**Women Trouble**

His dream had changed. He stood outside the tower; Monstrous bug like creatures surrounded him and the tower of the priestess. To his immediate left, a blast of wind blew many of the creatures back off cliff into the oblivion of the sky. To his right, a blast of water came from the side of the tower that was out of his sight, knocking bugs off their feet, or knocking them off the edge of the mountain. In front of him, the fire priestess danced and swiveled between the bug attackers, her hands ablaze with coruscating fire, blasting the bugs that she touched with both hands and feet.

Tom watched as the bugs swarmed around her, their attacks seeming to concentrate on her as she tried to avoid them and still try to attack them at the same time. Her attacks were getting way to close for Tom's liking, however Shaela seemed to dance into the attacker's reach and strike them before she could be struck herself. As the bugs continued to climb up over the cliff, they kept swarming around her ever closer and closer, taking away the distance that she could sidestep out of harm's way before the bugs could catch her.

Tom watched as one of the bugs maneuvered behind her and reared its claws back as Shaela dodged back toward it, trying to avoid another attack. Tom tried calling out, and as Shaela turned around to look, she was stabbed in the side by the sharp claws of the bug. It let out a sharp screeching sound as Shaela screamed her own pain and anger, engulfing herself and the bug in living flames.

The bugs stepped back from the blaze, waiting for the fires to die down, the scent of blood coming from the open wound in her side enticing them into a waiting process. She waved her left hand out weakly as the fire clung to her, licking at the nearest bugs who had edged too close to her while she held her right hand to her side, stanching the blood loss from her side. Shaela went down on one knee, the fires on her body shrinking slowly till only the heat rippled off of her., and even that dissipated, leaving her breathing hard in a slumped, withered state. The bugs moved in on her slowly, beginning to blot out her image from his view, and she screamed out for some help from someone, anyone…

Tom moved his arms out in front of himself, trying to prevent the bugs from reaching anything vital. He closed his eyes as if to block off the sights of the demonic creatures. The firm grasp of something taking hold of both of his arms and trying to pull them separate of each other made him fight all the more and more frantic to be away from whatever held onto him. A full arm slap caught him across his jaw and he fell to the floor abruptly.

"It's about time you got up!" The cynical voice of an irate and unconcerned demon called from the other side of the bed as Tom rolled off the injured shoulder that he had landed on. Looking under the bed in the direction of the voice, he could hear the wicked bitch still muttering to herself as her red booted feet moved on the other side. "Are all men as lazy as you, or are you a special case?" she slung another attempt at an insult at him.

"If all men are like me, I fear for all of humanity." Tom muttered to himself and scratched his head as he sat up.

"What did you say?" Shaela eyed him critically, stopping what she was doing which looked like killing a washcloth.

"I said, if all men had to live with three priestesses and have no opportunity to do anything at all but sit on their asses, they'd be lazy too." Tom said louder as he made to stand up, holding the cover in front of him. He eyed Shaela with resentment as he stood, shivering slightly as a cold draft brushed across his backside.

"So, you're looking for work, huh?" Shaela's eyes narrowed at him as she threw the washcloth in a steaming basin of water that had been placed by his bed. "I'm sure I can find adequate enough work around here for you to do."

"Um….One problem, O most powerful priestess of the elements." Tom said as he made a slight bow to her.

Shaela shot what amounted to a skeptical look and crossed her arms across her ample bosom. "This had better be a good question then. Wasting a priestess' time is a crime that can be sever depending on the situation." Shaela looked smug and self satisfied as she puffed up her chest and took a slight pose of greatness.

Tom thought to himself that if any man who held this priestess up from where she wanted to be would quickly find themselves short an appendage that they dearly needed. "I had merely thought that if no man is allowed to be anywhere in the tower, then how am I to do any work inside the tower?"

This simple logic seemed to take the air out of her a little as she went back to merely standing in front of him in her usual superior manner and thought a little on this. "I'm pretty sure that if you're accompanied by a priestess everywhere you go, then the law could be at least circumvented in a sense." Shaela began to grin evilly at him, looking as if she had just eaten the canary. "Of course, if you are cleaning in the tower, then that would mean that you are a servant of the tower, and your sex would hardly matter then."

"I knew this was going to happen." Tom silently thought to himself as Shaela did a little self satisfied nod to herself, "But I was getting a bit tired sitting here and doing nothing. Maybe I can snag a book from someplace and put it to good use."

"Here's your water for cleaning up and doing your teeth. Hurry up and get over here so I can make sure you're healed up." Shaela said as she wiggled her index finger over at him to come to her.

Tom shuffled around the bed holding the covers in front of him. Shaela looked at the covers and frowned slightly at them as he walked around the bed and came to a stop facing her. "What's with the cover?" Shaela said as she pointed down at it in his grip.

"It's a cover." Tom said as if he were trying to explain something simple to the really slow.

"I know it's a cover. I want to know why you're holding it in front of yourself." Shaela said as her good mood slipped off of her face and she got a slightly more aggravated look to her.

"Because I haven't let go of it yet." Again with the simple explanation, but he thought to himself, "And it's also for my protection."

Looking at him as if he was being stubborn because he was born that way, Shaela moved past him and went out the door. Tom sighed to himself and shook his head then sat down on the side of the bed, holding his head in his hands. Thinking to himself that his life was a lot simpler when he did stupid things deliberately, he sighed heavily and looked at the still steaming bowl of water. Arranging the sheet onto a more allowable area of movement, he reached into the water and began to wash away the nights sweat with the cloth.

Shaela peered in on him from the door, looking at what he was doing and why he had kept the sheet on himself all the time she was in there. His midriff could be seen from above the sheet and the small covering of hair along his chest gleamed wetly from the sheen of sweat he was beginning to wipe away from himself. He did a cursory wash over his arms as well as underneath them, then down his body as well. Noting that he did not remove the sheet the entire time he had it on him, she made a mental note to burn the poor fabric as a later date as it was now indescribably imbued with his smell.

She moved away from the door and deeper into the tower itself, heading down the hall to the study in question that Tom was being groomed to clean later today. The room had two hanging chandeliers from its ceiling, the workings along their meshed arms looking to be made of spiders thread. The furniture was made of the finest fabrics that had been contributed to them for their various tasks that they did for the people, giving the room the looks of spun colors all over. The wooden bookcases that stood near the windows held Afera as she casually read from one of the many books that had been sent to them as well, although she lazed in the human size sill as if she were a cat. Miz was also here as well, sitting by the fireplace in a slightly less than grand throne, though the needlework she was doing made her look more homely than any royalty could ever hope to bring into the room.

"Well, the poor slob's up and awake, though he gave me a fight just for doing that." Shaela announced to everyone as if she had just done a very tedious task and would have rather been building a toilet than what she done.

"I do hope he wasn't too much for you, Shaela." Miz commented lightly as she continued to work on her threading, looking to be creating a very intricate lace pattern today with the shears she held in her delicate fingers.

"Are you kidding? That guy is lucky I didn't just box his ears for trying to take a swing at me." Shaela held aloft one fist, the one with the gauntlet on it, and then moved over to a recliner where she promptly flopped into, placing her booted feet onto the coffee table.

Miz eyed the feet with disdain, but held back the usual rebuke.

"If he took a swing at you, you're lucky to still have whatever body part he swung at." Afera admonished in her usual don't-try-to-fool-me attitude. "Unless yesterday was some kind of fluke thing he managed to do."

"Yes…, yesterday…" Miz took free one of her shears and placed the lace to her side as she tried to recall what they had tried to tell her. "I do believe you two said something about him doing something extra ordinary…"

"What he did was nothing fancy." Shaela didn't want to talk about this and it plainly showed in her voice.

"What he did," Afera placed a finger to the line she had been reading then looked up and over at the others, "was move faster than what our sight could keep up with. 'Nothing fancy' hardly puts it into any context of what he did, Shaela."

"Big deal, so he moved fast. So what does that mean?" Shaela said as she sat up a little straighter, facing Afera more fully. "Are you saying that he is other worldly or something? You're saying that he may be the equivalent of us?"

"Other worldly may be just what he is, Shaela." Miz commenced with her stitching once more as she spoke her thoughts. "Remember that we found him up here on our mountain after the sounds of the sky opening up, a red flame falling from the sky that even you couldn't sense, although it was right there. Also there was the miraculous way his body healed in so short of time and now he is fast, maybe even incredibly fast." Miz nodded once before continuing, "Yes, I think you hit it on the head when you say that he is other worldly."

"I meant it as a joke." Shaela slumped in her chair, clearly regretting bringing up the idiot.

"Don't forget the strange clothes he was wearing." Afera added as she went back to her reading. "I doubt you will find any kind of fabrics like those around Floreshtica, or any part of the Roshtarian Kingdom."

Shaela got up and moved away from the two talking sisters of sorcery. She looked out the window morosely as she thought dark thoughts about Tom. Not even in the room and the man was still able to cause her more grief than what he was worth. Was there any kind of escape from him at all?

She looked sullenly along the cliff edge till she noticed movement along some of the rougher cliff stones near the far side of the tower. Tom had managed to get outside and was going from stone to stone, looking as if he was trying to find a rock that was larger than he was.

"What is that idiot doing?" Shaela voiced her disgust at the sight of him that drew the attentions of the other two priestesses.

Coming to the window next to Shaela, Afera spoke first. "I thought he was still in his room?" She closed her book and watched Tom hesitate in front of a very large stone, Miz coming next to her on her left and looked as well.

"You didn't leave him outside, did you Shaela?" Miz looked slightly angry with Shaela as she turned her gaze to study the man who had taken a straddled stance before the stone and was moving his fist back and forth from the stone face.

"Just wait till he tries to come back inside…" Shaela was getting angrier and angrier with him. Now she was being accused of abandoning him outside. He was going to pay for this insult.

Tom stood back about three feet from the stone, his fist coming to lay flat on its surface as he moved in a slow punching motion. For many moments, Tom brought forward his right fist to lay on the surface of the stone, adjust his feet, then retract his fist back to his side and repeat.

"Is he meditating?" Miz asked as she laid her knitting down on the sill in front of all of them and returned her full attention to what Tom was doing, which was now standing still.

Shaela opened the window up. "Hey! You pain in my backside!" She yelled at Tom at the top of her voice, making both Afera and Miz eye her disapprovingly. "Who said you could come outside and play touchy feely with the local rock life, huh?"

Tom moved.

It was the only way that all three of them could agree upon. He was not standing anymore as if striding, but had moved to his punch-the-rock position, this time with a more tremendous affect than just looking stupid. The rock fractured and blew away from the sudden turn, blasting into small pebbles and dust before their eyes. What was left was either floating away in the soft breeze or flying down the side of the mountainside in a cacophony of scattering dissent.

Miz was dumbfounded, more so for seeing him do something like this for the first time. Afera had a look of rapt adoration on herself, never seeing anyone destroy a rock with their bare hands before. Shaela looked as if she had swallowed the entire tower, the shock and fear on her face matching the red hot anger she was feeling as well.

"The Gods be forgiving…" Miz prayed softly.

"The Gods nothing." Afera said as she dropped her book, forgetting all about it for the time being. "Have you ever seen anything like it? And without using an elemental ability to boot!"

"He's not coming back into this tower." Shaela managed to croak out.

Afera looked aghast. "You can't be serious?"

"I'm afraid that I agree with Shaela on this." Miz turned and looked the disbelieving Afera in the eye with a hint of fear in her own face. "He is a dangerous force of some other power. I will not have him in this tower until we know for certain that he has it fully under control."

"Plus, he's a man." Shaela added right on the heels of Miz as if she had missed the most important part of the argument.

Afera saw the finality in Miz's eyes and knew she wasn't going to sway her. "And what should we tell him then? That he's not allowed back in the tower simply because he may or may not be a danger to us?"

"I'll go tell him." Shaela sounded a little satisfied as she gauged the distance from the third story window to the ground.

"I'LL go tell him." Afera fitted the lion headed medallion into place on the clasp at her belt and jumped out the window, already calling for the wind to slow her descent. "Might as well be someone who will actually miss him when he leaves."

Shaela watched Afera's back as she floated the three story drop down to the ground below. She didn't hesitate once her feet touched the ground as she began walking over to the man who had been outcast from the tower. He had stopped moving as he had before and was now looking over the edge of the cliff downward at some thing that only he could see from his vantage point. Coming up from behind him, Afera fidgeted with the sleeve of her suit and the waist line of her belt before clearing her throat.

"What is it?" Tom didn't even bother to look behind himself as he continued to gaze at whatever had caught his attention.

"Um…" how was she going to say this to him? Afera rethought her approach and tried again. "I've …. Got some bad news for you, Tom." Tom didn't say anything so Afera rushed into the silence. "The other priestesses and I talked and they've, I mean we, have come to a decision."

Tom didn't move or register that he had heard anything as whatever had his attention kept him turned from Afera. "Could you at least turn around and look at me when I'm trying to tell you something difficult?" Afera was getting uneasy and she at least wanted to see how he was reacting to what she was saying.

"You want me to leave, don't you?" Tom looked over his shoulder at Afera with an unreadable look, and then looked back at the tower where the other two priestesses could be seen.

Afera blushed with embarrassment and fidgeted in place as she wrung her hands together. "It's not my idea, O.K.? I'd like you to stay, but… well…" she looked over her own shoulder at her erstwhile sisters before looking back at Tom. "I hope you don't take this…? Tom?"

When she had turned back, Tom had already disappeared off the cliff side and from her view. She moved to the cliff edge quickly, hoping to not see a free falling person plummeting to a grisly fate. Something with a voice not human squealed in pain as a black ichor blew upward from unseen crevice just under foot from her. She fell back with a yelp and rolled out of the way as the black fluid hit the rocks and began to sizzle in a most unsavory way. The scream came once more before it began to fall away somewhere below.

Tom climbed back up onto the cliff edge, tearing at the shirt he was wearing, and the smell of sizzling flesh coming off of the clothing. He was quickly followed by a huge beetle of the darkest indigo color. Its yellowish antennae whipped back and forth as its amber eyes stared in multiple directions at once. Tom planted his hands and gripped as he kicked in rapid fire succession, breaking the claws, then the arms of the insectoid monstrosity. It fell away with another one of those squealing screams as its grip was shattered and it plummeted earthward.

"Get back inside the tower!" Tom yelled back at Afera as e took up several small rocks and slung them at any target that presented themselves. "We are under attack!" He let fly with lethal accuracy as he pierced the eye of another creature, striking it somewhere important as the body went limp and shuddered.

Shaela and Miz had already left the window and were making their way down the stairs, arming their own elements as they came through the outside doors. Afera had gotten back to the doorway and was already sending gusts of wind against the approaching edges of the Bugrom, trying to at least slow them down before they could get too close to them. Her thoughts were quick and precise as she pointed making a slicing motion and having the wind obey as it cut through the ranks before her gesture.

Pointing as a conductor directing a mighty orchestra, Miz called to her element in every aspect. Water coalesced in little drops and small puddles as it rose from the ground or gathered in the air. Directing her own rain of terror, water turned lethal as it solidified to sharp stakes and small spears, skewering both from below and above.

Shaela wasn't about to be outdone, not by a long shot. It was true that her element wasn't as elegant as Miz's, or as versatile as Afera's, but her element was the most destructive. To her, everything had a point where it hit a limit before it combusts, breaking the natural law that fire cannot start without a catalyst. She called to her gauntlet, the wellspring of her fire, and then pointed at the closest of her enemies as flames leapt forth from the metal protector. In an instant, all that touched the flame of the gauntlet burned with it's own fire, causing bug and rock alike to burn without aid of fuel.

"Why the hell are the Bugrom attacking us?" Miz coolly commented as she called for water out of the sky in small spots, aiming them like archers.

"Who cares?" Shaela flicked her hand up and forward, sending a roiling fireball into a massing wave of enemies. "It's not like we would ever understand them even if we wanted to."

"Then let's hurry this up and take care of business." Afera said as she began directing the wind to cause small dust devils, to try and stop a few advancing pockets. "There is still someone out here trying to help do our job, and unless you want to be shown up by him, I suggest we send these scum back the way they came."

Miz went to the right of the tower, sending a wet mist along the stone of the tower itself to prevent the Bugrom from wanting to climb up its surface. Afera took the left side of the tower, raising herself aloft with the air that she commanded, and beat down from above on the encroaching fiends with wind blast after wind blast. Shaela growled at being left to deal with the annoyance that was Tom though she wasn't growling so hard once she had fought close enough to him.

He fought as he could amongst them, giving lethal shot after lethal shot while trying to avoid their deadly blood. His kicks and punches maimed anything he came in contact with, moving in a dance of deadly efficiency that prevented any from passing him or coming around to attack from behind. For once, she didn't think about how much she hated men. This one time, she envied what he could do.

Shaela shook her head and placed the thought to the side. She had a job to do that he was doing just as well, even without an element. Surrounding her hands and feet with deadly flame, she waded in to the enemies surrounding Tom and began beating and hacking a way into him, trying to get close enough to help him escape from the spot he had gotten in to.

Tom was starting to look winded the closer she got, all his actions that he was doing at once was starting to take a strain on his body as he tried to do multiple things at once. He blocked and countered, breaking a segmented wrist, then returned with a kick as he turned and hopped over a slashing claw that was meant to hamstring him. He couldn't keep this up forever, one misplaced jump or an unsuccessful dodge, and he'd go under in a wave of slashing misery.

Shaela appeared from out of the waves of bug creatures, dancing in a roiling flame that clung to her feet and hands. Anything that she kicked or punched caught flame and couldn't be put out easily. To the bugs, the pain was temporary as their lives were meaningless. Onward they came, singed or ablaze as they tried to sink the humans in a wave of carapace and claw.

Tom looked to his left and saw wind blasts beating back the attackers, keeping them near the cliff face that they were crawling up from. He looked right and saw water torrents in the form of jets coming from around the other side of the tower, blasting the advancers hard enough to knock them off their feet and back off the cliff. Tom looked forward and swooned as a wave of Déjà vu slid over him. Shaela was fighting the bugs at close range, her hands knocking and catching fire anything that came too close, and her own dance of pain fighting back the bugs.

One of them managed to maneuver around her and come up unseen by the fire priestess, rearing back its clawed hand as she dodged back toward it to avoid a different attack ahead of her.

"Shaela! No!" Tom yelled and reached forward even as he knew what was about to happen. He tried to move at his super speed, but everything moved as if in slow motion as the dream became reality.

The claw caught her in the side with a wet sound and the pain that set on her face in a defiant grimace were all that she showed before incinerating the enemy on the spot. She surrounded herself in a cocoon of flame as she pulled back out of the bugs, or at least tried to as they kept with her, keeping her trapped in their circle of death. She waved at them, batted at them with her fading strength, but no matter the attack, they would not let her go. Tom yanked at the bugs blocking him off from her, knowing for a fact that she wasn't going to last in that pit of death if he couldn't get to her soon.

The light from her protective barrier flickered once as it weakened and she fell to her knees, looking down at the ground. She couldn't see a lot now, not even by the light of her own flame. She looked up at the sky and called for help from anyone, anything that could hear her. She reached for the sky with her right hand that was covered in her own blood and remarked at how red it was, like molten fire. Her consciousness slipped away and she fell forward, the flames dying out totally as her conscious slipped away.

Tom prayed himself, for a miracle, for a gift, for a chance to do something than watch as a life was killed before him. He was too weak, there was nothing he could do, and the realization was too much. He screamed out in frustration as he tried to get past them again, and watched as Shaela passed out face down.

"Please, God, anyone…" Tom thought in the back of his mind with as much strength as he could, "Give me the power to save this person from death. Let me die in their stead if that is the price, but please, don't let my weakness be the cause of her death!"

"Do you want the power?"

Time had stopped for a brief instant, or was moving so slow around him that it hardly mattered. There was something there with him, something that was powerful. He could feel it not by presence, but by some bone chilling terror that screamed to run away from it.

"I can give you the power to save her, the power to prevent any death that you want." Its voice echoed, if voice it was. The feeling of vibration ran through Tom's frame as the taste of ashes formed in his mouth. "All I ask in return is a place to reside. A mortal body to possess and to do with as I see fit. That is the price for my 'gift'."

Time was beginning to move forward again as the sound the screeching was coming to his ears and the bugs closed in on Shaela's fallen body.

"I offer you this gift only once, and my time is short." They had nearly covered her body from his sight, he didn't have time left. "Make your choice, and never regret."

Tom chose.

* * *

**VREEP VREEP **

Washu's computer screen and keyboard materialized to her right as she was slicing into a fairly large piece of meat that had been served to her at the dining table on the airship they flew in. The alarms that were going off and the red warning lights flashing on the screen brought everyone's attention to her as Washu dropped what she was doing and began typing in commands for a status report. As the scroll of screen began to appear, Washu began to type faster and faster as whatever it was she was seeing was making her more and more fearful.

"No, NO, **NO!** That isn't possible!" Washu was frantic as she began typing at an insane speed, her full focus on the monitor.

"Ms. Washu, what has gotten into you?" Lans who was sitting next to princess Rune as they ate dabbed at his lips and watched the scientist as she raced to whatever had so disturbed her.

"The sound that came from my machine here is an early warning device that was set up when Jason and Tom had been altered." Jason's head came up and looked at Washu critically when the name Tom came up and he began wondering the worst. "When that alarm goes off, it means something has happened to Jason or Tom. Something drastic enough that their body signal has either stopped, or been altered."

Jason dropped his silverware and stood up from where he sat, coming around the end of the table to look over Washu's shoulder at the screen that had a humanoid form flickering in and out. It was like the computer was having trouble keeping the form or even being able to detect it.

"What the hell is happening to him?" Jason muttered softly as he watched the body flicker faster and faster.

"He's being altered on a level that's totally unheard of." Washu set the record function on her computer and kept typing, trying to locate the source of what was going on. "Science can't alter a person like this, not this fast and with this kind of influence. His entire body is changing into something else."

Ryoko spoke the thought that Jason was just about to ask. "What kind of thing can change a person in a way that science cannot?"

Washu looked up and eyed her daughter with a very serious stare. "Something that only God could do."

* * *

An ear shattering scream reverberated through the sky, echoing across the lands below with a morbid chill. The Bugrom had frozen in place, even the priestesses had stopped at the sound of pain bellowed. Tom gripped his face with both his hands and fell to his knees, gasping as something cut into him, dived into him. It was alien and painful, energy and raw force that should never be constrained in a physical shell. He tried to stand and the Bugrom took their opportunity to step clear from him, opening up around him as if afraid.

Tom got back to his feet, his body burning from the inside out. There was someone calling his name, but he couldn't hear over the roaring sound that was rushing through his body. He couldn't hold it back anymore, or didn't want to hold it back anymore. He relaxed, and reality rushed away in a sea of darkness.

Energy poured out of him skyward, a black pillar of incandescence that surrounded his body and shot out into the blackness of space. A beastial scream burst forth from the pillar as black leviathan broke the outer edge, spreading wide in leathery majesty. Shock waves of unbridled energy being released pounded across the ground and through the sky, disturbing the balance of nature as both Miz and Afera lost contact with their power.

One of the Bugrom tried to attach the pillar, to shut off the source of the disturbance that held something that was primal, instinctual for the Bugrom, something that even made them fear. As it touched the outer edge of the pillar, it shrieked in pain as its body broke apart into colorful pieces of self and spun into a vortex of blackness, devouring the body in tiny pieces. The light faded till there was nothing left of it, and at the center of it, Tom was changed.

His body held more mass, muscles that had not previously been there now bulged with unrestrained power. His chest that had previously been unclothed since the loss of his shirt now wore a metal construction grafted with scales all across its form. The armor seemed to move on its own, pulsing with its own life and breath. Tom's hair and eyes had changed, his hair a swirling mix of white to darkness and his eyes were bottomless wells of nothingness.

In a voice that echoed with age beyond measure, the thing Tom had become spoke. "To the creatures that provoked my possessor's choice, I thank you most heartily." It made a mocking bow to the creatures around him, even as they edged backwards from him. "To show my gratitude to you all, I will kill you instantaneously."

He raised his hand up, fingers splayed and from each tip black lightning struck his foes, incinerating them to nothingness. The Bugrom had seen enough as they retreated for the cliff all around the tower. The thing that Tom had become laughed in a rumble that couldn't be human as he raised both hands skyward and sent out more power. Black lightning arced into the air and began to indiscriminately make every Bugrom disappear in a sharp crack of energy as their bodies were incinerated instantly.

Some tried to feel by jumping from the cliff, hoping that distance would be enough for them to escape. It wasn't far enough as with his hands held before him, the lightning began to chain together reaching out from one body to the next till every Bugrom was connected by this unnatural power. With but one mental command, every Bugrom zapped at once, popping in gory beauty with a final sizzling sound.

It laughed. The futility of trying to escape from his destructive wrath had been so amusing to him that he couldn't help but laugh. It had been a long time since his last incarnation and now he was going to enjoy himself in ways that he couldn't even begin to describe. He was about to leave, to find more creatures like the ones he had killed till he noticed the others there, sitting with the corpse as they poured the element of water into its broken body. It made him laugh harder.

"Oh, please, Shaela. Don't die." The one with the water ability tried to heal the body that lay on the ground, the blood beginning to congeal and the skin paling. "Please, you can't give up on life so easily."

"Your friend has long since passed elementrist." The thing that had taken over Tom stood over the living and the dead, smiling contempt and glee and the looks of fear from them. "There is no bringing the dead back to life by such meager means as yours. Best to let her die and forget all about her."

"She isn't dead!" The priestess of water spat her vehemence up at the thing that had killed every Bugrom that had come. "She's a fighter! She'd never die that easily!"

It raised a hand toward the body and from the palm of its hand came a shot of lightning that blasted a hole through Shaela's corpse. The body didn't leak blood or gore from it, not even the smell of burnt flesh made any difference to the body. The thing Tom had become chuckled deep in its throat, then reared its head back and roared its laughter.

That laughter was quickly cut off as a slap came and connected with the full arm force that the wind priestess could put behind it. "How dare you do something like that!" The wind priestess raged as the thing that was Tom glared unrestrained fury at her. "She was already dead and you would violate her like this? What kind of beast are you?"

Its head hurt as it looked at her. The one that it had inhabited was there in the back of its mind, clawing for control, fighting to regain what was his. He wanted to raze this tower and everything that stood on the ground with all the fury that he could muster. He wanted to destroy everything! He wanted for that annoyance of a buzzing in his ears to go away!

Tom wrested his way from the back where the thing that had entered his mind had slung him, fought his way back to take partial hold of his own body. "How dare you try to defy me!" The thing that had entered him was royally sawed off. "You would dare to take possession of the very thing you offered to me? I am Omnipotent, Mortal! I AM IMMORTAL!"

"You are a guest in my body, and as such do not have complete control of the damn thing!" Tom was upset that what he had become had done such evil. Even if he had to destroy himself, He'd take this creature with him to hell. "You had no right to do that!"

"I NEED NO RIGHT!" The power it commanded was truly awesome, he could feel such waves of power coming from it as it turned itself inward to deal with him. "I AM THE ARMOR OF DARKNESS, AND YOU ARE MINE FOREVER!"

"I asked for help, and you gave it to me!" Tom was thinking hard now, trying to find a loophole, a contractual binding for this thing. "I never for one second said that I would give my body in exchange for your help! You offered help for possession, but possession is not complete control!"

For a second, the thing calling itself The Armor of Darkness hesitated, and that hesitation was all he needed. Reaching through the thing that possessed his body, he took hold of himself once more, forcing the darkness into the back of his mind as he took control of himself once more. The sound of a short circuit came to mind as the sudden power discharge threw itself from off Tom's body, throwing him backwards with the force.

"Now who owns who?" Tom talked weakly aloud as his hair and eyes returned back to their normal color. His muscles shrank back into his body, reverting back to his normal size.

The Armor raged in his mind, anger and vengeance pouring from out of its unreal form. Swearing to do such things as only his dreams could imagine, becoming such things as only he could fear. Tom knew it couldn't, not while he held possession of his body, and possession is what he still had for now. It was enough to know that he could defeat that powerful thing in him, if given long enough.

The Armor tried another thought.

"I can save her." It cooed to him from the back of his mind. "I can restore her body and bring her back to life."

Tom's body went rigid at the possibilities. He could heal anyone who had died, bringing them back to life as if they had never perished, and no more death to anyone that mattered, to those who were innocent. He could also see the problems with that kind of power, putting at risk his control to the thing if he let loose for but a moment.

"Lend me the power to save her." Tom thought in his mind, and The Armor laughed.

"You think I will just give it to you, my Master?" It sneered at him, mocking the title like it actually meant something. "I want to be free." It whispered sweetly in the back of his head.

"A compromise." Tom thought, and formed a rough compromise up quickly. "I attain the power to heal, not totally resurrect. If I am allowed to bring this woman back to life, then I will share control of my body. Better than no control at all."

The darkness in him went still. It was thinking, he could feel it stirring around, being crafty in its thinking as it decided what it was to do. It wasn't long till it decided its answer. "Take Us over to it."

Tom rolled off his back, the sound of static electricity popping along his body as he moved. Afera turned toward Tom, her hand held toward him unsure of his intentions, while Miz held Shaela's head in her hands. Tom crawled close to the body, close enough that he could grasp the ankle of Shaela. Miz kicked at his hand, and when he wouldn't release it, wrenched at his arms.

"I will grant you a piece of my power, just a small snack for a good pet." The Armor knew he had the power to do what he wanted, but it would benefit him if he didn't have to fight for control. He threw Tom a scrap of itself, a tiny portion of itself, and Tom took it into his body.

Miz jumped away from Tom even as Tom felt it begin. There was a pulling coming from the center of his being, taking in the pain, the destruction that had been incurred. Shaela's body convulsed as the wounds in her side and the hole where her stomach had been closed on their own. It took only moments, but Tom felt like it took forever as his own health had been traded for the sick and the disease, even every would she had ever had became his own.

"I have prevented the larger hurt, the one that I had inflicted on the body from taking hold." The Armor told him with a sickly chuckle in its voice. Tom wondered what the thing was talking about till the side of his body began to bleed profusely, as if he had been gored by some weapon. As his blood flowed free and his mind sank slowly into unconsciousness, The Armor spoke one more time.

"There is always a price…"

* * *

With The Armor a part of Tom, his mentality will seriously be called into question. battling for his very soul will be a common occurance as he tries to remain who he has always tried to be, a good man. Washu, Ryoko, and Jason unwittingly race towards where Tom is, unsure of his condition or to the thing that has now taken residence in his body. Shaela healed but unconscious, what will be her mental state when she comes to?

I think this was a better chapter all around than the last four, but that's my personal opinion. I've been neglecting my other story just to hurry up and get this posted on here, I will have to devote some time to it. Dragonwiles will kill me if I don't T.T


	8. Chapter Seven

I have formatted my comp so posting anything took me awhile. (I lost my original copy of the story and had to pull it off my back up computer) Anyways, this is the newest chapter from a story I already finished, just never got around to editing. Today I introduce the Armor of Darkness, and a more mental mess it'll be for Tom than you could ever imagine.

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Elhazard/Tenchi series. I only own Tom, Jason, and the entity known as the Armor of Darkness

* * *

**

**Chapter 6**

**The Bonds of Fate**

He was falling. The darkness was all around him and he felt as if he was falling forever into eternity. There was nothing here, no sound, and no light, not even hope of salvation. Within his mind, he thought this is what hell for him would be like. A sense of weightlessness, not even a direction or object to orient him to this freefalling existence. Yet, there was something here with him, and he cried because of it.

There was something inside his head now, not the little voices one hears when they lose touch with reality, or maybe it was. How can one tell when the real world stops and insanity begins? Is there really any difference between insanity and reality? "Oh, please, someone, make the voice inside my head stop!" he thought to himself as he received an answer, but not from whom he wanted it to come from.

"You will never escape me, mortal." The voice echoed off the insides of his skull with a reverberance that made the darkness vibrate in his sight. "You asked for me, and I came to you willing and of no volition. You are not allowed to go back on your word."

"I didn't know it would be like this." He wailed aloud, the darkness making his voice sound muted to his own ears. He felt it begin to press inward on his body as he clenched his sight off to it. "I needed your help, but now you reside within me."

"It is not I who resides in you." The thing in his head uttered as a silvery surface formed, spiraling from a small dot to a flat pane in front of Tom. "It is you who resides in me." It sneered its own self satisfaction and laughed in a death rasp that rattled from the bowels of Tom's body. He knew it couldn't be real, yet he looked anyway into the surface.

Tom awoke screaming, sweat pouring from his brow as he sat in the darkness of the room, his body being constricted and pain burning a slow fire into the small of his back. He looked around the room panting, unsure whether he still slept or that this in fact was the real world, the waking world where nightmares couldn't reach him. He had seen…..something…..in the silvery surface, a face like nothing that could exist, or should for that matter, something that was both human and not, twisted by some perverse hand in a mockery of life.

He ran his hand over his face slowly, tracing his own familiar planes carefully, looking for anything he didn't want to believe was real. Feeling his own stubbled jaw line and taking slow breaths, Tom finally lay back down onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling without really seeing it. He was sure the thing that he had seen had his face, or something akin to it. Even as he tried to remember it, the nightmare began fading away quicker than a shadow beneath the sunshine.

His hands ran down along his body as his mind unconsciously did a self check of himself, his mind not fully taking it for granted that it was only a dream that he had. Brushing across the part of his body that had the constriction, he lifted up the blankets and looked. His lower body had been dressed in bandages that wound tightly around his body, some wool or some such material scratched at his back from underneath the wrappings. He felt back along the bandages till he came to a sensitive part of his body that would allow a soft probing, feeling the stinging pain of an open wound that refused to heal shut.

He thought in confusion as to why his body hadn't healed shut over this wound yet, any kind of infliction his body took on was gone nearly immediately, and yet this wound along his back was still raw from yesterday. He gingerly rolled onto his side and looked again at where he was at, knowing already where he was, but unsure as to how.

The medical ward that he had been ensconced in for the past few days had begun feeling like home, his clothes and shoes near at hand on the only chair in the room, while a pair of socks laid nearby on the footstool next to the bed. The mirror across from his bed was a full-size mirror and the dresser that stood next to it were the only other furnishings that were there except for the bed that he lay in, the washbasin, and the windowsill.

Tom looked to the mirror once more, the dream coming back into his head vaguely. Was his face really changed to something else? Had he lost his humanity to whatever thing had encroached into his head? Gritting his teeth in pain, he raised himself off the bed and hobbled the short distance to the mirror.

Darkness surrounded the room, the meager lights that the stars cast everything in a macabre semblance of light. "Gloom could only be brighter than this." Tom thought to himself as he focused all his concentration on peering into the mirror. Slowly, the world came into focus in the mirror, giving forth the reflection of truth that he had been wanting.

His face had not been changed like his dream had told him. It was the same as he remembered it, the few wrinkles starting to line around his eyes and the hair that was beginning to thin way too much to even be considered sparse. His eyes seemed to glow faintly with what light they could gather here in the room, giving his eyes a foxfire luminescence. He bindings and the light fur covering his body confirmed enough for him that everything with him was all right, if a bit shaken up.

When his reflection grinned back at him however, Tom thought that the light was playing tricks on him. He knew that he was completely mad when his reflection reached out to grip the frame from his side and pull itself out of the surface. He stumbled away from the now manifest reflection of himself, reaching backward for the bed even as the reflection reached out for him. Even as he fell back onto the bed, he knew that there was no escape.

"You have no need to run from me, mortal." The resonant voice echoed in his head. "You and I are as one now." The thing that mocked his image hadn't even bothered to try and be human as it spoke, its voice rebounding from out of nowhere all around every surface imaginable and rippling into non existence once again.

"What the hell are you?" Tom spoke weakly, his body shaking in cold chills that rushed through his bloodstream.

"I am your Master from now on, and I am known as The Armor of Darkness!" The thing gestured toward Tom. Shadows harkened to its gesture and gathered from every corner of the room, amassing before the proffered hand and coalescing into an undulating ball of darkness. Leaping from 'Toms' hand, the darkness spread across the body of the real Tom, his scream muted under the flow of shadow that poured over him. It hardened over his arms and legs, solidified across his torso, and lengthened from his hands and toes.

"It is done." The voice spoke from the borrowed form. Tom lay now no longer unclothed, but covered in a substance that was lighter than breath, but harder than rock. "This is the symbol of my possession, my mark upon you. It will flow and bend to your thoughts molding itself from your need. However, should I think that what you are doing is not in my best interests, I will command it myself."

"What have…….what have you done to me?" Tom needed something to focus on, something that was physical. His voice leaving his lips was real, they had feeling in them and in turn gave him courage that he still had command of himself.

"I have made you into something that is much needed in this plane of existence you call life." The copy of Tom bent over and leaned toward his face. As it passed a shadow held in-between it and him, the face had changed to the perverse mockery that Tom had dreamt of. His brow had flattened back toward the back of his head while his ears had lengthened, cheekbones sharpened unnaturally as his chin dropped to a low angle, even his eyes sunk into his head leaving the impression of sightlessness. "I have made you into death made flesh." The macabre creation smiled with something akin to a lustful hate before it disintegrated into dark motes in the air, silently fading away without a sound to be heard.

Tom shuddered in a cold sweat, his entire body shaking from outright fear. Nothing he had ever encountered before had been remotely like what that thing had been before him, not even the supernatural could have been more freakish. He would have disbelieved all of it, not even thought twice about what he had just gone through, except for one slight thing he couldn't overlook. The armor was still on his body, and its own weight was bringing him down into its world.

The armor melted away as well, but this time he felt it. It wasn't so much melting away as the illusion of him had, but diffused into his body, sinking into his flesh as if it sank into water. He could feel it just beneath the surface of skin, breathing with a life all it's own. It was a feeling with something that Tom would never understand nor comprehend. He put his hand to his body and felt around, feeling nothing save his skin, yet knowing what he had felt just a moment ago as the armor had faded away on him.

He had had enough, not being able to take what had just happened to him, Tom got up and got dressed quickly, knowing full well that he needed to get far away from here and whatever weirdness he had just brought upon himself. Fully clothed and prepared for a trip, Tom opened the window and slipped down to the ground. He gazed around the rocky outcropping near the edge of the mountain and the distance it would take for him to reach it, when he heard a noise from his left side. Pressing himself to the wall, he kept to the shadows as he listened again.

This time he heard it for what it was, a moan of delight elicited from a quiet throat as something or someone cooed delight. Tom heard a giggle and a gasp come from the same voice, sounding like it had come from the wind priestess. Feeling guilty about what he was doing, he crept over along the wall till he could see or hear something better than what he was hearing now. The next window he came to was open as well, and high enough for him to peek into without craning himself or putting himself in an awkward position. Tom peeked around the side of the window and looked, imagining what he would see before he saw anything.

Afera's exposed upper body was flush from the heat she was feeling, the stimulation the obvious bulge under the covers was giving her was more than what she was able to take as she bit down on her index knuckle and gasped once more, giving another short moan of pleasure. Tom swallowed heavily as he realized what was going on, although his guess had been confirmed for him quite quickly. Afera's body arched slightly off the bed, her perky breasts shifting slightly under the unbalance of her body, the nipples reaching for the sky in contrast with the creamy skin. A sheen of sweat covered her exposed skin, making her look to be some fairy caught in the throes of pleasure.

Tom decided that now would be a good time to make his escape when Afera spoke. "Oh, please, Shaela, do it again, just like that….." She whimpered softly, but not soft enough for Tom to of heard.

Not believing his ears, he looked into the room and sure enough, Shaela's head popped out from under the covers to lay flat on top of Afera. Their breasts rubbed together in a mashing of flesh on flesh, Shaela's coppery skin contrasting with Afera's cream skin to a dramatic effect. Tom pressed a hand to his nose, sure that he was about to begin bleeding from it.

"You like that, do you?" Shaela said as she moved closer to Afera and kissed her hotly on the lips, their tongues sometimes seen swirling around each others. They kissed for a bit longer before Shaela broke the kiss first, both of them breathing heavily. "I'll make sure you forget all about that man, my dear Afera."

"But, he saved your life…" a prolonged moan escaped from Afera's mouth as Shaela ground her lower body against Afera's. Even Shaela was looking more flushed than usual as she began making love to the wind priestess.

Tom had seen enough, things were only going to get more heated between the two, plus they were getting increasingly vocal as their passion took hold. Figuring he wouldn't be seen, Tom crouched down and slunk toward the edge of the cliff. He almost made it when the clearing of someone's throat brought him up short.

"Leaving, are we?" Miz's voice was frost on a lake of ice. Tom came up short and stood to his full height and turned to face her. She still wore the blood stained clothes from the morning, her hair had been touched back into place and her hands washed of the excess blood from Shaela's previous wounds. She did wear new to hear face a scowl that was aimed at Tom.

"I thought it best that I should leave considering I am an interloper here." Tom said as he gazed back at Miz, She held the serene calm that she had always been in control of, which was until they had nearly lost Shaela.

"Yes, you are an interloper here," Miz looked like she had bitten into something sour as she continued, "but you are a wounded interloper, and that gives you all the protection anyone needs from the law of the tower."

"That protection hardly applies to me, Priestess Miz." Tom said as he turned from her and headed for the edge of the mountain once more. "You know as well as I do that I heal too fast to be normal, so the law cannot apply to one who needs no time to heal. I will leave you now."

"Your back hasn't healed yet, or else you would of moved faster than what you've been moving." Miz said as she walked over toward Tom. She lifted his shirt up and to his surprise, her fingers came away bloody from his back. "Your body grew this wound after you took it from Shaela, almost as if you gave her your health in exchange for hers. If that were true, however, you'd be dead instead of her, and for a moment, you were dead."

"Be that as it may, I am still leaving." Tom's back ached fiercely where Miz's fingers had poked at his back. He didn't know she had pressed so hard till the pain flared up. "That is, unless you intend to force me to stay." Tom knew the answer to that just as Miz said it.

"We force no one to do as they see fit. If you wish to leave, so be it." Miz said as she turned from Tom, yet she only walked a short distance before she turned part way around to look at Tom a bit less coolly. "Thank you….for saving Shaela." She said before she turned and walked off into the darkness, heading back toward the tower.

Tom shook his head and looked off into the sky. He was feared by people who could use the elements, and now a wound that didn't heal like the rest of his body. Wonder what else the future had in store for him. Something inside of his head shifted at the thought, and he thought he heard laughter, but he dismissed it quickly as he set out to climb down the mountain at night.

* * *

"Now then, exactly what are you trying to do?" Jason asked for what was probably the fourth time in an hour.

They were all gathered around a small bon fire, Washu working on her floating laptop, Ryoko and Princess Rune sitting to her immediate right, Jason and Lans had taken the other two sides respectively. Lans was immediately on the Princess' right side, closest to her in case something might happen, even though they'd have to get past all the outer ring of guards that had come with them on the ship. Jason looked over Washu's shoulder as a 3D grid formed.

"I'll try the dumbed down version for you." Washu said as the screen started to shade over starting from the ground level and spun outward. "I've brought up a program I incorporated into the scanners on the ship we had ridden in into my computer. Just like with radar, it scars the surrounding areas for anything outside this dot here." Washu pointed to the center blip on the screen as she continued. "It doesn't really have a lot of range on it, but anywhere within a few miles and we'll know if anything's coming at us."

"I've also created a program that runs off the scanner that's a lot like an animal's nose. Taking the data I had on Tom, I set it so that any sign of the nano's in his body will set off the alarm system, alerting us that he is near." Washu pushed the monitor to the side and accepted a plate of steaming porridge from the princess with thanks before starting to eat.

A guardsman approached from out of the firelight, saluting Lans as he made a brief report. "We've searched the area thoroughly, Lord Lans. There appears to be no signs of any more Bugrom in the area." Lans nodded at this information and the guardsman continued. "We also checked the remains of a few of the bodies that impacted the ground appear to have burn marks as well as dismemberment done to them. We assume that they tried to attack the tower on the mountain and were summarily repelled."

"Thank you for your report, guardsman." Lans said as he stood and saluted the warrior. "Make sure your men get a good night of sleep, put them on a 2 hour rotation, no more than three men up all night."

The guardsman returned the salute and turned back out into the night, already calling over his men and issuing the orders. Lans reseated himself in front of the fire and thought on the information the guardsman had spoke of. "It does not bode well that the Bugrom attempted an assault on the tower itself. Were they pressed into the attack? Or was something else happening that they had no control over?"

"Odds are they had someone watching us in the chamber where the King met us at, spying is second nature to the shadow tribesmen." Ryoko had taken Ryo-ohki from her hair and was scratching it's ears softly.

"O.K., I've seen a Bugrom, but what does a shadow tribesman look like?" Jason was checking over all the straps and armament that he held to his body, going over each piece of hardware with a craftsman's precision.

"The Shadow Tribesman are human in physical speaking terms, but they are blue skinned warriors and assassins from birth." Princess Rune watched the fire as she spoke, her voice was calm and political, but her eyes were sad and her slumped stature resigned. "They are the most dangerous part of this war, not only for their skill in fighting and assassination, but in their arts. The Shadow Tribesman have the ability to make you see something that isn't there, something that can't possibly be real or even believable, yet in more instances than not you die just the same."

"They are why we have come to The Tower of Muldoon." Lans said as he took up the speech from his liege. "The priestesses are very powerful, yet just as susceptible. If they were to be killed by the Shadow Tribesman, we would be lost even before we put up the best defense we could."

Jason brought his gun down and pointed just past Rune's head, firing a round off before the party thought to stop him. The sound of a wet splatter and a spray of blood shocked Rune worse than the deafening sound of the gun being fired in her face. From out of this air, a body materialized as the ragged pieces of a vaguely human body with blue skin rippled back into existence even as the spasmodic twitching started to leave the corpse.

"Guardsman, to me!" Lans yelled out to the darkness even as Ryoko stood and formed an energy ball in her hand, holding it with a calm grip as she scanned the darkness.

"How in the hell did you see it?" Washu said as she peered down at the cooling remains, it's fluids leaking out of the larger pieces.

"I was peering over the fire and saw something ripple, it reminded me of a video I saw a long time ago." Jason said as he turned in spot and looked out into the darkness.

"I was almost killed…?" Princess Rune looked shaken beyond belief, even though her guards were coming into the light quickly at Lans behest.

"Lucky that I was here then." Jason said without the smugness of one who use was finally pointed out. He saw something up on the mountainside move in the darkness, a shadow that clambered like a human, moving downward along a sheer rock face. "I see something on the mountainside, looks like another assassin." Jason said as he sighted down his gun, aiming as best as he could guess at the figure.

Ryoko threw her hand up at the mountainside before Jason could shoot, launching her attack at the speck of a man. The impact on the wall was enough to shake the body free from the mountainside, but it turned in the air and landed on a barely seen lip. Jason selected single fire on his gun with a thumb toggle and fired, aiming at the target to see if he could flush it out in another direction even as Ryoko launched another attack up at the person.

It moved catlike as it leapt from the lip to a lower, larger Cliffside. Moving at a dangerous gait but well enough to be a hard target to hit, it was out of the next explosion even as Jason and Ryoko fired a third and fourth volley at it. It was quickly running out of room and one of them had to hit it sooner or later, it wasn't as if the person was going to jump off the cliff. It had to be at least 10 stories high from where he clambered.

The person didn't think twice about it once he hit the edge of the cliff running. Moving with a dexterity that was amazing, he ran straight off the side of the mountain into the air and began falling, not having the time to scream or curse out as he plummeted. The guardsman separated into two groups, one staying behind to protect the princess, the other group heading of into the woods to see if the person survived and could be used for questioning. The wait was a long one and nerve wracking, but after some time had past, the guardsman returned with a bewildered look on their face.

"He is gone, My Lord." The head of the guardsman said, not believing it himself.

"He vanished?" Lans questioned, but the guardsman shook his head.

"He…… ran off, My Lord." The guardsman's face was ready for a rebuke, but Washu spoke up first.

"I think we had all better go out and see for ourselves what is left." She was already heading off in the direction of the forest where the person had fallen into before anyone could catch up to her. It was a trek that was made difficult by Lans' assertion that the princess should stay behind for her own safety, but denying Lans she had set out to follow Washu as well.

"It would make little difference if I died hiding in the ship, or if I died out here if there is another shadowen somewhere about. Far better for us to stay together and watch each other's backs than to be separated, don't you agree?" Rune was off balanced from the near murder, but she was quickly composing herself as she could, the walk into the woods making her calm down.

They found the spot where the person had fallen in through the canopy, the limbs and blood on the ground all the evidence that anyone needed. They fanned out in every direction, Lans keeping Rune close to him as Washu typed on her illusory laptop. Jason, Ryoko, and the guardsman spread out leaving a light protection around the three, looking for anything that would say if he had merely crawled off, or lay in hiding as he died. The guardsmen returned first, saying they had found nothing on a more detailed search, Ryoko returned next saying the same.

Jason returned and said he had found tracks. "They're faint, but they're definitely footprints. Human footprints. They aren't hurt either from what I can tell, and the direction of the tracks leads off back that way." Jason turned and pointed off into the deeper part of the woods.

"You must be skilled to find these tracks in the dark like you did." Lans made it sound like praise but his eyes held a bit of doubt.

"I used to hunt. Humans aren't like animals. They leave a better trail to follow, especially when they're scared." Jason looked up into the limbs, not feeling the doubting eyes of Lans on him. "From the way he fell and the impact of where he hit, I'm amazed he was able to make it away at all, he should at least have broken legs."

"Two fractured Femurs, one cracked Ulna, extensive lacerations to his legs and arms, and a shattered left foot, to be exact." Washu said as she typed into her computer, the schematics of a human body came into view on her screen. "He's in a lot of pain. Internal bleeding and adrenaline are pushing him really hard at this point."

"Will he survive long enough for us to question him?" Ryoko leaned over her mother's shoulder to watch the screen.

"Probably not, internal bleedings pretty intense, he'll probably pass out here pretty soon." Washu said then made a sound in her throat as she pressed her finger to a diagram of the person's back. "What I don't understand is this wound here on their back. It should be enough to be crippling, yet it doesn't seem to slow them down in the least…."

The words were taken from her lips as the diagram of the person began to change. The bones knitted back together within seconds, internal bleeding reversing it's flow, and the bones in his feet fixing together, restitching even the lacerations on his body back to normal. The wound on his back however took longer to heal, but once his body had begun, it didn't stop till all the wounds were healed.

A second set of sensors popped up next to the body of the humanoid, speed ratios, reaction times, bodily fluids, even cardiovascular stress as the speed increased to 183 m.p.h. After a few seconds, the person left the area that the comp could track him and he was gone.

"Well, that answers the question on who it was." Washu sighed dispirited at what she had just seen.

"By the gods!" Lans breathed heavily as Washu began heading back to their encampment. "What sorcery is it that a man can recover from such damage and then those other numbers? Where they his speed?"

"Yes, Lans, I do believe they were his speed, and only one person I know could do all those things." Washu crossed her arms over her chest as she thought. "Still, that wound on his back, that should have been healed long ago, yet it was the last to be healed up. Has his body changed? Or is it something else?"

"I thought you said that machine of yours would alert us of when he was in the area, Washu." Jason glared down at the diminutive form of Washu.

"It was supposed to pick up on his nanomachines, but obviously the data that I have and what has become of his body is different. He's changed." Washu said as she thought about the ramifications of what could cause that.

"So what do we do now about him?" Jason asked, clearly not concerned about their other mission.

"We do what we can do first, and then we worry about him." Washu said as they came back into the clearing. Her voice dropped low as she spoke to herself, "You do what must be done, no matter what the costs, and no matter the payment."

* * *

Their camp was on high stress all night long for the rest of the night. The guards were posted thick enough to be called a wall of flesh, Lans making doubly sure that nothing got past the outer defenses. Still, sleep was light and rest was little if any at all. Jason could barely sleep with all the unusual noises going on around him, settling in for an uncomfortable wait and giving up on sleep altogether.

Ryoko had been another one who couldn't sleep, the cat like cabbit long ago falling asleep in her lap as she made over it, a soft hand running along its back. "Your thinking about Tom, aren't you?" Ryoko said to Jason as she looked across to him from the other side of the fire pit. It's dying embers giving a barely visible view of anything in particular.

Jason nodded and sat in silence for a while, sorting out his thoughts in his usual methodical way. "It doesn't seem so long ago, and yet it seems like we've been gone from home forever." Jason looked up at the sky and searched the stars for something familiar. "Was our decision so large that it changed our fates forever?"

Ryoko smiled softly as she looked into the embers for a moment, remembering the time when she had said something much akin to what Jason had said. "Do you regret making your decision to follow your friend?" she asked and once more Jason got the look that he was thinking hard on what she had asked.

"It's not so much that I followed him…" Jason thought as he spoke, not feeling secure about thinking and talking at the same time, "It's that I think its Tom taking me along where he goes." Ryoko looked a bit skeptical at this and Jason tried to explain. "Tom has always had wild ideas, things I'd never think about on my own. Usually stuff that once I've heard it, I'd want to try to. This time however was something that I don't think either he or I realized just what might happen."

Ryoko didn't pose the same question to him again, but tried something else. "Why do you follow him then? You know what he does isn't the smartest thing in the world, so why do it?"

Jason thought long and hard on this, finally shaking his head. "I'm not really sure why I follow him, other than I'm afraid, I suppose."

At this, Ryoko scoffed. "You? Afraid? You're the strongest person I've ever met and now your totally invulnerable, and you say your afraid?" She chuckled softly to herself, but what Jason said next cut her off.

"Yeah, I think I am afraid. It's not so much being afraid for me though, but being left alone." Jason laid down where he sat, a rifle set up across his chest and his hands set so he could bring it to bear on a target as he rolled awake. "Goodnight, Ryoko. I'll see you in the morning."

Ryoko started brooding when she heard that confession from him. She had been so alone for so long she hardly remembered what it was like for her to be out there by herself, well her and Ryo-ohki. She had traveled across countless light years to different galaxies and had so infuriated so many cultures and races that she had earned the nickname 'Ryoko the Destroyer'. It was that loneliness she had felt when she had left this planet that had set her to that path, only tracking down her mother 50 years later, the underground informants of the wrong type giving her their knowledge cause they knew it would bug her.

"You're thinking about when we got separated." Washu rolled over from where she lay and looked up at her daughter.

"Ya know, listening to others thoughts can be constituted as a crime under the Galaxy Police penal code." Ryoko snipped off at Washu but the smaller woman merely snorted.

"This coming from someone who has nearly broken every law that the GP and Juridian council set down for galactic law." Washu sat up better and wrapped her arms around herself, a chill seeping in through her clothes, or just a feel of old age. "It's been nearly 300 years since we've been here together." Nostalgia laced Washu's voice as she thought back on the past.

"You mean you can remember back that far?" The shot at Washu's age was standard Ryoko annoyance, but even her voice took on a bit of fondness as she remembered back that far. "Seems like millennia ago, time flies when your getting old, eh mom?"

Washu had to smile softly. She felt the slight barb in her daughter's thought but took it as her showing sincerity. "It certainly was a long time ago, and if I knew what was going to happen, I would have insisted on these electronic mind relays during that time."

"Oh, be serious. It was several years after that before you figured out how to create those things." Ryoko glanced down at her mother from the corner of her eye before looking back into the fire pit. They were both silent for awhile before Ryoko spoke. "I'll never forgive the Juridians for what they did to our family."

"It was something that had to happen." Washu was gruff when she finally responded, but Ryoko could eel the colder chill behind those words. Regret and something like a cold hate lingering in the back of her mother's mind.

"I know I shouldn't ask this, but why did he have to become possessed by the armor of darkness?" Ryoko never could grasp the fact that her brother had been possessed by something older than recorded history. She searched long and hard afterwards when she and Washu had been separated for any kinds of leads to the creator of the armor. She never did find an origin for it, and she just couldn't believe that it was possible.

"I swear I wish I knew. Maybe then I could have found some way of removing it from him, but the Juridians had their duty to perform and even then, he was nearly taken over by the armor." Washu had studied the logs she had salvaged, much of the old technology being destroyed when the armor had been. She had poured her expertise into everything she could just to find a way to prevent the possession, or to find the next person and somehow stop it prematurely.

"I'm sure you tried, mom." Ryoko didn't sound all that believable as she turned over and adjusted herself for some down time. "You might want to think about some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a bit difficult if Tom was already there before us. Who knows what kind of impression he left behind."

Washu felt her daughter cut off the telepathic link between each other. She sighed with her own thoughts in her head and her doubts plaguing her imagination. She never did understand why her son had possessed the armor or even how he came to possess it, maybe she would never understand. She'd be damned though if she ever let the poor bastard who possessed it now is cursed to an end like that.

* * *

"Explain this to me one more time how we must help out Floreshtica." Shaela lugged a pack of her clothing on her back as she walked out the door of the Tower of Muldoon for most likely the last time.

"Quite simply put, we are the last best hope between the Bugrom and Shadowen tribes combined." Afera had packed light, green leggings and a close cut jerkin also in green kept her body free of movement and able to keep up with the fastest runners on foot, a few parcels of clothing lying at her feet for spare clothing and anything else that may arise.

"We are duty bound to help out the people of Roshtaria above our own welfare, Shaela. Even you know this, unless you were slacking off in your lessons again." Miz had opted not to bring anything with her, the blue and gray shawl she held snug around her lavender hair and the dress of modest silks and of petticoats the only thing in attendance of the water priestess.

"It's not them I have the problem with." Afera's face took on the stiff prideful look of an heiress who should not be questioned at Shaela's comment. Miz's face took on a bitter, sullen look knowing full well that they were about to go do something that she wished they didn't have to. "Just why in the name of Chardax do we have to go after that Man in the first place?"

"Rune thinks Tom could be a valuable asset to the defenses of Floreshtica, that's why we're going to go search for him with them." Afera had stated her opinion of the begin all, end all tolerance she had displayed when his name was involved.

Shaela was beginning to wish that she could just wipe his memory out of existence. "That's always good enough for you, isn't it? Simply go after the damned thing and 'Oh, Mr. Tom, how we missed you so much."

"Shaela, enough." Miz was already moving out the door of the tower and to the awaiting ship had was situated outside on a borrowed updraft that Afera had created. "We serve the people and the House of Pronelius that rules Floreshtica and Roshtaria. They want his services and it is our duty to go after him on their command, even if we don't want to." She left the two priestesses standing in the antechamber, both glaring darts at each other.

Within moments of securing their stuff and Afera setting her powers to guide the ship back down onto land level, Miz and Shaela had taken up a spot near Rune inside the dining hall. "I am sorry to inconvenience you like this with coming after this one person, but we will need his talents if he is as good as you claim." Rune was regal formality and looking none the worse for wear from sleeping out in the wilderness for a night, her clothes immaculate and her hair looking newly washed.

"It is my fault, Princess Rune." Miz said as she curtseyed low to her. "Had I but known that you were looking for him, I would have detained him last night."

"No matter, we have someone on board with us that will be able to track him over the distance we will travel to locate this man once more." At this a side door opened up from one of the adjoining compartments leading back into the ship. "May I introduce to you Lady Washu Hakubi, scientist supreme."

Both priestesses inclined their head to the new arrival, but their eyes both goggled at the translucent panel and screen that appeared in the air in front of Washu as she sat down at the table. She began typing on it not really paying any kind of attention to the staring at her, or for that fact acknowledging the fact that she was in the presence of two of the most powerful women on Krinas.

"Catching up to Tom is going to be the difficult part, as he can travel faster than us." Washu said as she began explaining the plan of tracking. "He will eventually have to stop and rest, but from what I have gathered from Jason, this won't be till he's ready to collapse from exhaustion. We'll have to travel nearly all the time as fast as we can go with your other friends wind talent giving us that much more of a boost to even have any chance of catching him."

"Fortunately, He's a creature of habit. Unless something distracts him or draws his attention for a period of time, he'll most likely continue on a straight path till he hits the ocean." Washu grimaced at the next part of the plan. "Should he be thwarted by the ocean, he'll either follow the beach one direction or the other, and that will costs us days if we can't catch him by then. Choosing wrong is not an option and finding him before he gets captured is a whole lot better than letting him fall into the wrong hands."

"What about his power?" Miz asked in the break that Washu had left. Rune looked over at Washu for this so that she herself could gauge what this boy would be capable of. "What are we to do if he turns on us and uses his powers against us?"

Washu thought about this for an instant and made a shooing gesture. "He'd never attack us, or at least, I believe he would not attack us, but if it came right down to it, we'd have to incapacitate him in some fashion."

"And his other powers?" Miz wanted to know the full extent of this boy they had taken care of, what he could really do.

Washu stopped what she was doing and looked up at Miz confused. "I don't think the healing factor that he has is something we are going to have to worry about."

Miz and Shaela exchanged a look between each other that both the princess and Washu couldn't possibly miss. "Is there something that you think we should know about?" Rune prodded, giving them the opening they needed to present there little secret.

"I'll go get Afera, she's the other one who saw it." Shaela turned on her heel and walked out of the food court, already not liking how this was beginning to turn out.

When Shaela had left, Miz told all of what had happened up on the Tower of Muldoon. The attack that had nearly overwhelmed them, Shaela's near slaying, and then the transformation. With every bit on knowledge she gave, Washu's face paled more and more, her hands beginning to visibly tremble on the table. Some sense of dread must have leaked out from her mind as Shaela, Afera, Ryoko, and Jason came into the mess hall.

"What the hell did you say to make my mother upset?" Ryoko challenged the water priestess with a raised fist that raised only an eyebrow on Miz.

"Everybody, please sit down." Washu asked in a shaky voice. The look on Washu's face was something akin to pulling teeth, not pleasant, but something that needed to be done. Once everyone had taken a seat, Washu started with the relevant. "I assume everyone knows about the catastrophe 300 years ago that nearly wiped out life on this planet and caused the Bugrom race to be born." Everyone but Jason either assented or nodded. Ryoko looked uncomfortable and squirmed in her seat near her mother.

"If what Miz has told me is close to the truth or is the total truth, then we may have a great problem on our hands in the form of the end of all existence." Everyone looked at Washu as if she had just spouted poetry in Bugrom.

"Please elaborate for us, Lady Washu." Princess Rune directed, prompting Washu to continue with her narrative.

"About 300 years ago, a problem was created in the joining of something omnipotent fusing itself to a person." Washu got up and began walking around the table, her stomach roiling at what kind of feelings this was bringing up. "It would of gone on and destroyed the entire planet had it not been for a people that everyone knows here as Juridians." Jason raised his hand, a question evident on his face, but Washu ignored him. "If what I have heard is true, I believe that problem has been brought back to Krinas."

"Your saying a catastrophe is about to take the planet? Worse than the current war going on?" Rune looked worried more than ever for this bit of knowledge, the priestesses looking grim.

"Mom, you're not suggesting…" Ryoko began to speak, but Washu cut her off in mid sentence.

"I'm not suggesting, I'm fairly sure." Washu took a deep breath and let it out, before announcing to everyone, "I believe that the armor of darkness has returned, and spirits help us if I'm correct."

* * *

Tom had just about had enough of this shit. He had been harassed by at least two packs of those bug things, tripped over another a third pack, and had fallen into a den of the suckers as they were setting up a colony like the ants they looked like. Now he stood on the shore line of a beach, two days hard travel from Mount Muldoon by his speed, his face itched like all hell from the beard that had started thicken on his face, and he needed a bath in the worst possible way. He had thought things couldn't possibly get any worse till he came out of the woods into the sunlight of the beach and tried stopping, the trail of ruts leading into the sea a clear sign that the brakes needed to be checked.

His hair and clothes now were dried hard from the salt left behind when he had gone into the water. He looked rugged, beaten, and just flat out tired. His travel agent was going to get the better side of his tongue once he got out of this god forsaken armpit of a resort that he had the unfortunate luck of being shipped to Fed Ex, and of all things, sent as a parcel. Anything that was going to cross his path now was going to need a miracle to save them from him.

The thing in the back of his head was still talking to him, gnawing on his last nerve and generally pissing him off. So how did someone shut off that little voice in the back of their head anyways? He didn't have any alcohol on him and he doubted he could run to the nearest bar, considering he hadn't seen any habitation since being shot off the side of a mountain two nights ago, and that landing had hurt like all hell since he made it. He had probably been crying for a good long while afterwards in shadow pain, even though his body had healed from it long ago.

In fact he thought he could hear the crying now, faint in the back of his head as he walked the beach. No, it wasn't his voice he heard, it was someone else's, and they were sounding pretty desperate. Tom stopped for a little bit, the surf was blocking the sounds out of everything but crashing waves for a moment before he heard it again, the faint yelling coming from directly ahead of him.

Learning from his past mistakes, Tom loped down the beach using short jumps to control his speed and stopping power. He found the screamer quite quickly, but he found something else that was just disturbing. The people that had tried to kill Shaela were there along the beach, staring out into the surf as one of their own floundered quite badly out in the water. Three of them had strung bows pointed out at the sea toward that person, but no line tied to the arrows. It was almost as if they wanted her to die.

"Hey!" Tom yelled down the beach at the party of ten, getting their attention and an arrow shot at him for his efforts. Tom ducked underneath the arrow as he rolled forward and sprung at them, making the distance in two bounds. The blue skinned people weren't ready for him and it was obvious as their leader, someone masked with doodles of red paint drawn over the dark leather stepped back from him as he landed in their midst.

Tom hadn't bothered on taking the sword he had confiscated from the dead Shadowen boy when he had left the tower in the middle of the night, but he was plenty fast enough to disarm the masked Shadowen and turn the sword against it's previous owner. Spinning like a dervish, he cut and sliced at a speed that made the blade whistle. He leapt back and landed five feet away from the person he had just sliced away at, no blood covering the blade and no wound to be seen on the person.

All the warriors had stopped and looked at their leader as the pale skin stopped, taking the sword and sliding it into the scabbard that he had stripped from the same person he had apparently missed. The leader pointed and bellowed something in a language that Tom couldn't understand till the armor on the same arm fell away in a ragged heap. With that, the rest of the armor fell away piece by piece as the sudden pulling from its previous attached pulled at the next as it fell away.

Tom watched as his handiwork tumbled away from his foe till the breastplate fell away, revealing scarred breasts of a woman who had handled many a battle before. The proof became even more evident as the mask fell away next to show a woman's face behind it, the right eye socket scarred shut from a blade slash that had gone from hairline to jaw line. As everyone watched and to the bearer's shame, the rest of the clothing fell away piece by piece, even down to the boots as they peeled away from the person who had worn them.

Tom recovered first bringing the scabbard to hip and glaring around at everyone but the undressed. "All right, who's next to get sheared like a sheep?" Tom placed his hand to the sword hilt and wondered as to how long this was going to take.

It was over before it began as the three bowmen turned from facing the sea to their leader and shot her in the heart. Tom moved and slashed as he passed, breaking the bows in two even though he was too late to prevent the murder. The woman fell to the ground, her eyes sightless even before she hit the ground as the rest of the warriors faded from sight. Tom didn't have time to worry about them as he realized the screaming from the water had finally stopped.

Dropping sword to sand, Tom turned and leapt into the sea, springing several feet from a standing position before he began paddling as hard as he could. He always hated the water and he was ungainly with al his clothes on, but it was already too late to change his mind about undressing, seeing as he was already in the water as it were. Diving down, he found her feet away, the last vestiges of bubbles bleeding away from her open mouth as her strength had finally worn out. He got to her before he could blink, and he turned and made for shore, hoping he wasn't too late.

No longer than thirty seconds had passed since he had dived into the water for her and returned with her in tow, yet he knew that time was against her and him. He felt for a pulse and not finding one, began CPR, breathing into her mouth and pumping on her chest, trying to restart her heart. Even as he worked on her, the voice in his head slandered him for trying to bring the dead back to life.

"Let her die, let her rest. You know this is for the best!" The voice crooned in his mind.

"Shut up already, you annoying, arrogant sonofabitch!" Tom spoke aloud, not caring if he was mad at this point, just trying to save at least one life.

"And do you think she will thank you for saving her life?" The thing rasped, death speaking through shattered ribs and a coating of dust. "Do you honestly think she will let you leave here without trying to kill you first?"

"No one deserves to die before their time. No one!" Tom breathed into her mouth again and began pumping on her chest even as the voice laughed at him.

"You are a fool, mortal." The voice mocked him with that name. "Everybody has a time to die, you are just prolonging the inevitable."

The woman coughed and spit up water even as she rolled onto her side, fighting out from underneath his touch. Tom laughed weakly, seeing her moving around with life, not knowing if what he was doing was saving her or killing her. The voice in the back of his head rasped a bitter sigh and finally, mercifully went silent, back to wherever it resided. She turned and rolled over, trying to crawl away from him, and Tom helped her underneath a shaded tree, keeping an eye out for her friends. He sat down next to her, holding her upright and keeping her warm after her near death.

"So I prolong death." Tom thought in his head, emotion flooding his brain with euphoria, "At least I choose to live."

* * *

And thus does the moral battle within him begin. A being with powers beyond anything a normal person should have (though Tom isn't exactly normal) and the people he has been waiting for in hot pursuit. Now he's saved a Shadow Tribesmen, and we all know what they're capable of. Exactly how destructive is the Armor of Darkness and how long if ever will he be able to contain such power by his will? 


	9. Chapter Eight

Well, took my sweet time in putting this up, but it's finally here. I believe we've graced over why the tab is labeled a different chapter than what it should be, like say the title of the chapter. (I'm lazy) Anyways, for everyone who knows, here goes.

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to use any and all characters from El-Hazard/Tenchi series. I own only Tom, Jason, and the Armor of Darkness.**

**G.B.: **I am introducing a new character for everyone today. Please give a welcome to miss Meris vah Tosh.

**Meris: **...

**G.B.: **Meris, do you want to say anything to the readers out there?

**Meris: **I'm going to kill you, Biscuit.

**G.B.: o.o;**

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* * *

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Chapter 7

**Love at First Bite**

She had died a traitor's death. Here would be no peace for her, no rest in the afterlife. The humiliation of being made an outsider would haunt her throughout history as a lost shade and her name would be placed in the caverns of shame with all the other lost. She would never get to see her mother that she missed so much.

"Mi'hara…" she called out to her mom, feeling so much shame that she wished she could have the words back.

"So, you're finally awake." Something spoke to her from above, something cold and hard as awareness rushed in and her hunters skill asserted itself.

Her eyes snapped open to the darkness of a starry night, they were under a tree of some type and the shadows were deep here. There was a physical presence under her body, cradling her in its arms, though the flesh was cold and clammy from exposure. The body under her wasn't much better, she could feel the fabric of cloth, but the clothes were chilled, not only her own, but the person who held her. She tried to look up at the thing that held her, pushing up on the person that had spoken so that she could see their face.

"Who are you?" She spoke as she attempted to raise her hand up to his face. She slumped weakly in his arms as he caught her before she nose dived into the sand.

"Easy," He said as he held her close to him again, "You're still weak from what happened to you. You need to rest." She laid her head on his chest, looking upward at the sky as she lay back atop of him.

"Who are you?" She asked again, trying to look up at his face in the shadowed moonlight from the tree. The eyes of the Shadowen were supposed to be the best for seeing in the night, to be able to make out any feature no matter the lack of light. Instead the shadows seemed to conceal him within their darkness and secrets, hiding just who and what he was from her.

"I'm…..no one to be concerned with." The voice sounded tired, weary. He must of saved her and had worked very hard to revive her. No wonder he had not bothered with a fire, not having enough energy to do something as meager as that. "However, I did save your life. May I know the name of the person I saved?"

"My name is Meris Mor-deth. I'm of clan Vah Tosh, third guild house." Maybe after he figured out who she was, he would finish what the assassin squad that Galus had sent.

Instead he chuckled softly in his throat, the rumble that passed through his body rocking her softly. "Well, Meris, it's nice to meet you." He said softly, his voice sounding utterly tired and his arms went slack from the ridged hold the previous they had been. "I'm afraid that I'm going to have to cut off this conversation as my body has about reached its limits and I think I'm going to pass out at any time." His intake of breath raised her head on his body and his movement laid her flat atop of him, taking what view she had of him from her sight. He rolled softly away from the tree to lay her on the sand she thought, but something soft and dark was under both of them.

He yawned again, this time in her ear, though it was a soft breath across her ear. His embrace was light but still wrapped her close to him and his body was warmer than the air. She shivered at her near miss with death, wondering if dishonor was still in store for her when the cursed light rose into the air. She doubted she would be able to return to her clan, let alone her people. Could this person be another of the outcasts? The Lost? Her body's fatigue finally took hold of her and her questions faded away from her mind, sinking into a world of restless sleep and fragmented dreams.

* * *

Rune stood at the prow of the airship as it sailed silently over the canopy of the trees, their second day traveling after this comrade of theirs taking longer than what she would have willingly accepted. The night winds blew softly around the vessel, bringing a slight chill with it as it traveled on its own path to some unknown destination. The knowledge that Washu had presented them with days earlier gnawed in the back of Rune's mind, a worrisome itch that could neither be reached nor scratched. 

"Princess, it is very late, and you should adjourn back to your quarters before the night gets any colder." Lans bowed softly from behind her, the ever dutiful shadow that accompanied her.

"Our kingdom is in a bigger mess than it started with." Lans was wiser than he let on most, and not questioning her meant he knew what she was talking about. "How could she have brought such a dangerous person with her like that?"

"Perhaps for the same reason that the priestesses of Muldoon learn their power, my princess." Lans came up from behind her and placed a comforting hand upon her shoulders. "It is not easy for anyone to accept great power, and even less comforting for another person to have such power forced upon them. It is important however to try and do something good with that power than to let it destroy oneself."

"But this time…" She left the sentence go unsaid as Lans nodded at her side. This time there was someone on her world that had a power that could unravel worlds at their core, uncreate existence with a gesture.

She remembered back to her history class of the ancients and past mistakes. Of the other time that the armor of darkness had been made manifest through an unwilling host and nearly destroyed not only itself but the planet as well. The entire ice continent had been wiped clean and gouged out into the terra, preventing any priestess of earth to ever be in contact with the wounded planet ever again. It was thanks to the Juridians that they had been saved last time, and thankfully, there had been enough on hand to stop the armor.

"Let us hope that the Juridians have already felt the existence of the armor and are already hurrying to our aid." Rune said as she stared across of the rolling canopy of green as it sailed underneath the ship, onward into the night.

* * *

She awoke to the sunlight staring down from a bluish sky, the heat from above warming her even as the cursed light took away the last of the shade that had protected her the night before. The sand was underneath her, and the person that had held her last night was no longer there, gone with the night and the shadows. 

Something had woken her up from her sleep as she brushed her bluish hands across her face to remove what sand had gotten there. Something had gotten close to her and had done something that her senses had picked up on, something threatening. It appeared out of thin air next to her, its sword swinging downward in a shallow arc at where her neck was.

She rolled backwards as the sword moved, her reactions hampered by the sand as she slid for purchase, avoiding the edge by scant inches. She coiled on her feet, whipping from her belt a dagger long enough to be a sword and held it against the lower part of her arm, prepared to bat away an attack or counter with her own slash.

A Mor-Deth stood close to her, the wielder of the blade that had nearly killed her. Behind its face mask, the Mor-Deth hissed out, "Your previous executioners failed to eliminate you as per Lord Galus' orders. We've come to make sure you die this time."

"I went willingly to my death as one of La Kalas Sharantha. I died, now I am not Sharantha." Meris stood up and took an open stance with her legs, keeping the balance on her toes. "Come and kill the dead, if you can, Mor-Deth."

By answer, the Mor-Deth sprung toward Meris with a feinting jab followed by a quick horizontal slash as she went from low to high and back again with a power only a Mor-Deth masters. Even as she fought, Meris knew she was against a Master of Blades, the elite of Mor-Deth, and walking away was not going to be easy. Her training still had years to go and with each backwards step she took, she knew that she was going to fall any moment to an attack she could block easily.

The fight was over the moment she let her blade get to high to block her head as the Mor-Deth switched rotation of the sword in mid swing and spun it the other direction, giving the blade lift instead of clubbing force. Her sword went flying over her head backwards as Meris stared her murderer in the eye, waiting for the fatal slice that would end her life and spill her blood. She was dumbfounded when the Mor-Deth flew backwards from her, as if being dragged from behind by something.

Something like a physical shadow moved from the trees toward the Mor-Deth, something that was incredibly fast. The Mor-Deth turned and must have seen what was coming because she raised her sword and screamed defiance at it. Her head flew off her body quickly, the voice cutting off with a wet sound as the body crumpled in its spot.

Meris saw what it was as it stopped at the remains of the Mor-Deth. It was shaped human, and yet there was something about it that was not so much eye catching, but just not visible. The human form was all black, skin, clothes, hair, everything about it black as night. Its muscles rippled as if they wanted to leap from off the body and come tearing after anything that was not part of itself. The face was vaguely familiar to her even as she prepared to defend herself barehanded.

The blackness on its body changed, melting back into itself as color began to come forth from underneath. The face was weary, tired, and it looked to be regretting something as it looked at the fallen body at its feet. Meris brought her hands up in front of her and stared at the thing it had now become, a smoldering rage beginning to form in her stomach. It wasn't bad enough that she had been saved by that creature, but it was worse when that creature had been a pale skin all along.

"Why did you have to come for her?" He said quietly, but not so quiet as to hide his sympathy. "Had you simply let her go, you would have remained alive."

"She was doing what any Mor-Deth would have done, pale skin." She said the last with a sound like spitting. "Mor-Deth are bound to death as a lover is bound to the blade. They are one and the same"

He looked at her and he was crying, the wetness shimmering on his face making her angrier. This thing was so weak it was sickening and yet she had needed its help to survive! The shame would be nearly impossible to be rid of!

He was in front of her before she could see him move, her hands went weak with shock, but she still threw a punch at his chest to try and bring him to his knees. The shot he took was not enough for him to even grunt, the distance between hand and body not far enough away to be effective. He looked her in the eye and stared at her with a look of angry speculation.

"Your name is Mor-Deth, which would make her your sister, correct?" He went on before she had a chance to answer. "Why don't you cry for her then? She was family and she is now dead. Why don't you cry for her instead of me?"

Meris raised her chin and glared hot defiance at him. "Mor-Deth is a title for those who kill with skill. She was no more my family than you are."

His shoulders slumped weakly as he turned around and walked back to the corpse. He stopped along the way to pick the severed head that had been knocked free from its shoulders before heading back to the body. Meris wasted no time as she turned around and went for her blade, bringing it up and close to her arm in her favorite striking position. She rushed him from behind, not trying to be silent about it as she ran at him, wanting nothing more than to cut him in two as she ran past him.

She was nearly on top of him when she started her slash, using her illusion abilities on herself to make her seem to be at a slower pace, wanting to burn this memory into her mind. The blade touched his back and he turned extremely fast, so fast that she felt as if she were flowing through mud. The head was thrown up into the air as he brought his hand down on her blade, batting it down with the briefest of touches, then brought his knee up at the same time. The sound of metal cracking in her slowed pace was nerve shattering and the force of his batting had thrown her off balance, wrenching her downward and making her entire arm go numb with shock.

She rolled several times before she could come to a complete stop, her left arm hurt like she had broken it and wouldn't respond to her orders no matter what she wanted it to do. The shattered weapon lay broken at the man's feet, his gaze looking at her with a slightly annoyed look. "Did you learn your lesson?" He asked her with a little calmness in his voice, though there was a hint that he was not so concerned about him, but that she was all right.

"You're not human." She hissed in pain as she watched him catch the head in his hands, blood that had flowed from the neck splattering down in a bloody rain.

"You're right." He said with a sense of loss. He threw the head over to the dead body and took her shoulder in his hands. She bit him and he snapped off a bark of pain, then feeling began coming back into her arm. Her fingers tingled crazily as sensation worked its way back into her left arm as the man stood back and his own left arm hung from his side, a look of pain finally crossing his face. "Now go away." He said to her as he moved by her, not even worried that she was going to attack him again.

She jumped to her feet and whirled on him, throwing a kick at his head as she leapt up into the air. She felt for a brief moment that she had touched his head, but his body moved once again at a speed beyond sight and she came back to the ground, him kneeling down where he had stood. He brushed the left side of his head with his right hand and looked at her angrily.

"You are my enemy, pale skin. The Shadow tribe never let their enemies leave alive once the fight has begun." She jumped into the air and tried to come down at him once more, a kick aimed for his face obviously her intent. She was struck before she knew it, the wind rushing out of her body as she fell slumped into his arms. She had no breath left and all the strength left in her was not enough to stand.

"This fight is over, Mor-Deth." He said in her ear, pressing the intention on her that she should not try to fight back again. "You have lost and yet you live, I have spared you. I will not do so again should you come after me."

She blacked out into unconsciousness, floating in pain for a while, but the pain washing away nearly as soon as it was created. She didn't come around till nearly sunset, her breath back and her strength as well. A grave had been made for the fallen warrior, the footprints walking away from the sandy marker an indication of who had done it. She was absolutely infuriated that she had been so defeated, and not only defeated, she had been left to live. He treated her as if there was nothing about her that scared him in the slightest, not even death.

She felt the tracks, feeling not the ground that had been treading upon, but the shadow that had been created. Each person's tracks were distinguishable to her in the dark ways, the gates between here and nowhere that only a Shadowen could travel through. She smiled grimly to herself, distance was nothing to her in the dark ways, and she'd find him this night or the next if she had to travel till the sun rose up. His shadow prints would be harder to track once the sun rose. She'd make him have a reason to fear her, and she'd make him regret that he hadn't killed her.

* * *

The boat arrived that night at the shores of the sea and orders were made that no one was to leave the ship under any reason. Any tracks of his passing would be scoured away if they were left to walk the shores alone. There had been a momentary sign that someone had been out there in the shadows, just on the periphery of the scanner of Washu's, but it had disappeared before she had gotten a chance to fully scan it for any kind of information. He had been nearby, or someone else had been nearby, but they were long gone by this point in time. Jason sat the railings of the ship tonight as it hovered above the beach, looking out not only at the water, but at the beach below. He scanned the darkness futilely, his eyes not strong enough to see anything out there further than a few feet. 

The moon had gone behind the clouds some time ago, a rain storm threatening to make its appearance with the new day. Jason knew as well as any tracker that rain would wash out any tracks that he had left on his way through. So intent on looking at the beach below was he that he jumped when someone placed their hand to his back.

Ryoko smiled softly to Jason and offered him a cup of some dark liquid. Giving his thanks, he turned back around to look at the beach, not bothering to touch his cup.

"He can take care of himself. You shouldn't worry about him so much." Ryoko said as she sipped form her own cup.

"What Washu said bugs me, Ryoko." Jason said as he looked back across the darkness at nothing in particular.

"You mean the armor of darkness." Ryoko said and looked sad, Jason not seeing her sudden mood swing from smiling to sad.

"Yeah, that thing." Jason placed the cup down on the barrel next to him and turned to look at Ryoko who had recovered from the sudden mood swing. "How does she know so much about the armor? What is the armor anyways?"

Ryoko walked to the railing on the other side of Jason and leaned on it as she stared off into the clouds above. "The armor of darkness is an old Juridian tale of evil and goodness. The Juridians have always believed that they are goodness while the armor of darkness is the exact opposite of what the Juridians stand for. No one knows whether it is as powerful it truly is, or just how old it is either. All they know that wherever written history is, the armor has always been there in one form or another."

Jason turned and looked at Ryoko, her eyes gleaming softly with held back tears. "You and Washu encountered the armor here? On Krinas?"

Ryoko nodded and wiped at her eyes. "That was the day my life was changed forever." A little anger slipped into her voice, but she laughed it away. "My mother and me lived here long ago, when Krinas was just in the short term of being a supply depot for colonies around this section of space. Back then, My mother was always busy with my father on one scientific thing or another and it was always me and my brother working on something."

"Your father?" Jason asked, trying to be considerate and listen to her.

"He and my brother were the best family I ever had and we were happy then, when we were all together." Ryoko sighed and a look of anger slipped into her eyes. "Then the armor came. It possessed my brother and the raw power at its potential tore not only at his mind but at his body as well. They say that once someone is possessed by the armor of darkness, he can never be released from its hold until he is killed.

"My mother didn't believe that, and neither did my father. They worked tirelessly to find a way to break my brother free from the hold the armor had on him and they nearly came across a way to seal off the thing, maybe even cut off the armor totally and leave my brother in one piece." Ryoko's body went ridged with anger and contempt as she remembered the past. "The Juridians wouldn't hear anything about a sealing technique. Their philosophy is utter destruction of the possessor and of the armor. My father tried to prevent them."

"He was killed?" Jason asked, knowing how much it hurt, but needing to know what truly happened.

"He leapt in the Juridians way as they fought to slay my brother. His sacrifice brought my brother's mind back, but in his anguish for our father's death, he released the power of the armor near the southern part of the planet. The world population was cut drastically because of the flooding and the rapid changes of the weather. Many died or starved to death, and the Juridians did nothing to help them. They only wanted the armor and they finally got it, but not before they had paid a heavy price for it." Ryoko stood up and raised her cup to the sky.

"To you, my brother. May you rest in peace." She tipped back the last of the drink and swallowed the draught down her throat, draining the cup dry.

She turned and walked away toward the ship, but Jason had one last question for her. "You never did say, what was your brother's name?"

Ryoko turned around and smiled at Jason, winking at him. "You two are alike, though you don't look much the same." She thought for a minute and nodded as she made her decision. "His name was Kagato…"

Jason took up the glass that Ryoko had handed her and held it to the sky, just like Ryoko. Giving his toast, he drank from his cup and swallowed hard. The liquid was deceptive as it burnt a trail down his throat and into his stomach, making him see double. Ryoko couldn't help but to laugh at poor Jason's dilemma.

* * *

Night had fallen out here in the wilderness. Tom's first night hadn't been so bad, being on the beach and listening to the sounds of the ocean as it sent him to rest. Even the feel of the woman of blue skin hadn't been so bad, something warm against his body that was comforting. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the memory of her out of his mind. 

The woods around him bristled with life, not only from the ground, but from the shadows as well. Eyes of animals not seen peered out at him from the safety of the woods, the small fire he had gotten going from some fallen limbs lit up his area between the trees. The light flickered weakly from the small pit he had managed to create with some rocks and some sand he had grabbed back at the beach. The few berries he was eating came from trial and error, he had the sword on him and could have gotten meat for something else to cook, but he didn't want to use it unless he had no other choice.

He thought about the strange woman he had saved from the sea once more and this time he didn't try to shake her away. It was something about that woman that reminded him of something he had lost, something that he had taken for granted and never knew he missed it till she brought it back to him. He thought about this for awhile, trying to place his finger on what it was without success till the voice in his head spoke up.

"She would have suited you," it spoke hollowly in his head, echoing around in his mind, "a fleshly creature more bound to death than what you are. She should be worthy to take up Me."

"You can't take something that doesn't belong to you." Tom spoke aloud, thinking his thoughts would have been like acknowledging that it was himself he was arguing with.

"Everything belongs to me, fool." The voice laughed at him, a low rumble like thunder cascading around and pooling in his body. "You are merely someone that is a vessel for me, which was your only creation in this life. You have always been mine."

Tom sat silently, not bothering to think or even to acknowledge the thing inside of him. He had those thoughts every once in awhile, the wondering for why he had been created. Having this thing read his soul was sickening, but having it voice those doubts was worse.

The forest around him went quiet, the sounds of creatures disappearing away coming to his ears as his body quickened his senses, a primal feel washing over him that even brought the armor up short. Something was out there, something large and formidable. A creature that was at home out in this wilderness, king of the lands it stalked, and it was coming closer.

Tom stood up and listened intently for whatever was around him, that out of place noise which would signal an attack. Things that were more in tune with nature stayed quiet as it approached, the feeling that he was being stalked running up along his body. There were eyes out there watching him, eyes that were hungry for warm meat.

There was a sound of a roar, something big and beastial as lunged from behind him. He spun in place as time slowed down for him, getting a good look at the front of a big cat with horns lunging at him. It had to be somewhere around 9 foot long and partially scaly, with fun and lizard flesh melded together in some weird fashion. The horns on its head were that of a bull, sharp enough to spear a person and long enough to pierce clean through someone if they weren't careful.

The beast had lunged off of powerful legs to lift as high as his shoulders, but for Tom, it was a fatal mistake. Kneeling down as he brought out his sword, Tom motioned with his hand as the thing flew over top of him. The creature laded badly as its intestines blew out from underneath it, its belly being sliced open lengthwise. It gurgled some bleating mewl before it died, the smell enough that Tom stood and quickly stepped away from the corpse.

The blade that sunk into his back shocked the living hell out of him. He hadn't heard anything, or sensed anything, his attention had been focused on the beast so much that he never bothered to listen for anything else. The slash of the blade in his back moved from one side to the other as it cleaved flesh and separated bone from its moorings. There was a breath at his ear as it spoke to him, a soft whisper that made the hair rise on his neck and send his nerves on edge.

"I told you that a Shadowen never lets their enemy go alive once they begin fighting them." Meris licked his ear softly in a sign of intimacy before she ripped the blade free from his back.

Tom gasped in pain as he fell to his knees and further onto his hands. Blood washed downward from the gaping slash across both his clothes and his body as he breathed in pain and shock. There was another piercing pain as the sword the woman wore plunged through his back and out his chest, digging down into the dirt and making Tom spit up blood. His strength was fading fast and his eyesight was weakening, the darkness seeping in around the edges as his mind quailed in fear of death.

"You should have killed me when you had the chance, pale skin." The voice mocked at Tom from above him as the sword was pulled free from the ground and a boot was placed to his back. It was pulled expertly back up through his body and removed as Tom's strength left him. He fell to the ground face down, the last of his breath leaking through the open wounds in his back and chest.

Meris stood back from her kill, dismissing the illusionary cat she had created. It had been easy for her to sneak on him afterwards as he was looking for something that was a part of nature and not her. It was then only a matter of time to wait for the kill as he tried to escape from the imagined smell. She wiped the blade against her kill and resheathed it, turning away from the dead person. Now that she had fulfilled her honor, she could die in peace.

"That wasn't very nice." Tom's voice whispered by her own ear and she froze in fear. He grabbed her by her shoulders and spun her around to look him in the face. The skin was pale and waxy, his eyes dark and hollow as death. The wound in his chest had already sealed shut and the blood was being recreated in his body to compensate for the loss. "Didn't I tell you once not to follow me or I would kill you?"

He looked down into her fear struck eyes and grimaced in pain. It's not very often that someone gets up from being dead and obviously, she had never seen anyone else do it either. Tom let her go and turned away from her, stepping back and walking toward the outer shadows of the small clearing.

"You will die at my hands, pale skin." Her voice was shaky, but she slung it at him none the less. Tom turned around and looked at her like she had said something in another language.

"Are you out of your fucking mind, lady?" Tom said as he pointed at his head. "You just skewered me into the ground on that pig sticker you call a weapon and you say your going to kill me?" He looked at her incredulously as he walked back to her, the color finally coming back to his face. "Just in case you haven't noticed, lady, I can't die."

Her hands clenched at her sides and she looked at him with hate in her eyes. "You WILL die at my hands, pale skin." She forced her body to stop shaking, trying to convince herself that she was not scared.

Tom was dumbstruck. She had seen the obvious, and yet she was still saying she was going to kill him. Either she was ignorant, or blind, but Tom was making bets on both. "You have issues, Lady. Big Issues." Tom turned and walked for the shadows again, his body weak from the serious wound that had been inflicted on it.

"I will kill you!" She nearly bit of at him as he walked away from her. Her anger was at such a level that she wasn't thinking straight anymore. Tom turned around and looked at her.

"If you're going to kill me, good luck." He spoke to her, making his voice sound serious and unconcerned at the same time. Turning back to the darkness, he spoke over his shoulder. "While you're at it, get some rest. I'm leaving when I wake up in the morning and you'll most likely want to stay near me if you're going to try to kill me."

The shadows seemed to wrap around his body as he disappeared into the darkness, making him almost invisible to even her eyes. She shivered and rubbed her arms, trying to get warmth back into her body. She had never imagined, never dreamed that there was someone out there who could not be killed. She had never driven home such a perfect killing shot, and yet he had gotten back up from such a blow and shrugged it off.

It was as she said, he was not human. Now she had told him that he would die and by her hands. By the laws of the shadows, she must follow the oath of Mor-Deth and kill as she could when she could. Everything must die, it was just a matter of time to find what it was that could kill him. She walked off into the shadows that he had disappeared into and looked for her prey, biding her time in silent preparation.

* * *

He hadn't been here in quite a long time. Walking through the ancient corridors of his past, Kagato could not quite recall everything that this place was, only that he had been here long ago. That was before Tokimi, however, and nothing mattered that was before Tokimi. She was everything to him now. 

Although time had not been pleasant to this forgotten relic of science, the metal and structuring of this unnatural fortress had fought off the eventualities of all things. The doors opened with a silent hissing noises as hydraulics moved in shuttered gaps, and electricity hummed softly bringing light back to darkened corridors. He was undisturbed, for the machines that still functioned in this place still had him on file, the data on him still fresh in the banks of this technological wonder.

Walking through one set of doors into a chamber of isolation, he gazed upon a translucent tube of fluid that held a pale figure. She floated in oblivion, sleep wrapped firmly around the makings of her mechanical mind, yet outwardly she still looked to be no older that a 16 year old child coming into her maturity. The black ebony hair that floated around her in the fluid contrasted with her choice of clothing, the bodice and skirt of a dress so gray as to make the metallic walls seem colorful.

The choice of tools she used, her staff, was clasped in her hands. The bottom of the staff was grooved like a screw, turning and twisting in one directing, etched deeply enough to seem for that purpose. It was the top of the staff that was the least lethal part of it, hammered to a flat surface and sharpened till it could cleave any surface and not become caught in its surface.

Kagato stood back from the glass and watched his sister from his previous life. She had been something of a joke in the labs, if he remembered right. The cybernetic creation of his father and his mother that proved that something could be created from nothing. She had been raised like their own child, being the first thing they had ever made together, even before Kagato himself. It was her mentality that had been so endearing, that youthfulness that she could never surpass, and her desire for her mortality, to become truly like the rest of her family.

"Computer: Voice Recognition Verify. Kagato Hakubi, I.D. #4175-T27-DZ3R. Password: Foolishness is for Children" Kagato spoke the words he hadn't said in so long, he wasn't sure if they were the correct. He waited for the defenses of the room to come on line and attempt to destroy him, but an acknowledgment from the hidden speakers in the room confirmed his old memory. "Reanimation process of the Ifurita protocol. Stage 1 activation. Begin protocol."

Bubbles rushed up from the bottom of the translucent tube as machines came to life both on and in the metal constraints. Water began draining away into the pipes underneath the tube and was shunted away with a soft hissing sound, the pipes themselves frosting over as the liquid rushed away to places unknown. Once the fluid had dropped to a low enough level, the glass slid to the left into the metal casing of the tube. The temperature inside the tube and the temperature in the room being at odds with each other created a mist that was too thick to be penetrated with a normal eye.

A figure rose up out of the mist, the silhouette of the girl appearing from nothing as she moved from behind the mist. She walked forward just far enough for her upper body to appear out of the mist and stood before Kagato.

"Ifurita protocol: Stage 1, completed." The voice came from the metallic form without her lips moving, a set of vocalization modulators articulating only the machine in her. "Beginning Stage 2: Reanimation process."

"Cancel Stage 2 process. Begin defensive protocols Code: Valhalla." Kagato spoke on the toes of the voice from the doll like person, a buzzer sounding from the form as he finished.

"Warning: Use of the Valhalla initiative is in direct opposition to preprogrammed functions. Use of the Valhalla initiative may result in catastrophic loss of all memory pertaining to…." Kagato cut it off abruptly.

"Initialize Valhalla Protocol. Authorization: Odin." Kagato waited a few seconds as the sensors that functioned for the eyes of this toy readjusted, the lens dilated and refocused as it correlated the instructions.

"Authorization: Confirmed. Initializing Valhalla Protocol." The machination brought its staff up to its shoulder and aimed the point end at Kagato's chest. "There shall be a one minute delay before Valhalla Protocol commences, all civilians are suggested to evacuate or face immediate termination."

Kagato laughed from deep within his body as he bowed to his former life. "Welcome back to Krinas, Ifurita. Make sure you kill that man who holds the armor of darkness, for nothing can be restructured if there is nothing left."

* * *

She awoke slowly, the light was never something she enjoyed seeing. It was there at the corner of her eyes, that annoying sense of brightness that always hurt looking at it or even near it. She was warm and her body felt relaxed, even loose as if heat had been poured into her body all night long. She didn't need a campfire for such luxuries, but it was always nice to have something nearby to help her move when she needed to move, her body just didn't respond well otherwise. 

She opened her eyes to the cursed surface world once more, looking around with her eyes only to see if anything moved or threatened her. The area that the man had chosen for camp had been a good one, the old trees here were hollowed out just enough for a human body to hide among the roots and not be seen by anything walking by. Plus the moss gave off a faint smell that would distract their scent to the local wildlife.

She had positioned herself not far from the man, close enough to see him and yet not so close as to be taken unaware by him. She had laid out a few simple traps with the few things she had on her, plus a few vines from the trees nearby to set up a carefully crafted trap for anyone who got too close to her position. She had trained well in survival to be alive today, Mor-Deth didn't last long if they couldn't survive on their own.

Looking over at the spot where he had slept at last night, it was not surprising that he had disappeared into the night, or in his case, the early morning light. She wouldn't let that get under her skin, however, she had already found him once, and she would find him again quite quickly as she had last time. She stretched in her spot, relishing the extra warmth that an errant sunbeam struck her with and felt something rub underneath her.

She felt underneath herself and felt cloth with her hands, not pressing hard enough to let whoever it was be aware that she was being inquisitive. There she looked down at her feet and saw that there was a second pair of legs underneath hers, and that they were larger than hers. She could only stare at them for a few seconds till something moved on her stomach and chest that made her skin crawl.

He had gotten to her in her sleep, worse, she never felt him somehow get underneath her while she slept. She was livid with rage and disgust and was about to get off of him and stab him repeatedly when Tom spoke. "I had nothing to give you. The darkness that I am is not something that should be given to anyone."

It sounded like he was still asleep, and he was talking into her ear, mumbling something of his dream. Maybe this was something she could use to get underneath his armor. If she couldn't kill him physically, she would find a way to make him wish he was dead.

His body was shaking underneath hers, a sound like a sob coming from his lips. He pulled her close to him, and spoke once more, quietly. "Ti shalanthra quloth, varantha su Mor-Deth."

The hair on her head stood on end as he pronounced those words in flawless Shadowen. It was a language he couldn't possibly know, and yet he pronounced it with such ease as to be chilling. Not only that, the words were like he was saying goodbye to someone that was His Mor-Deth, and only Tok-Ran spoke as such. She placed a hand on his and stroked it gently with her thumb, trying to coax him to say more.

His body went ridged for a moment and he sighed warmly against her neck, nuzzling her head from behind her. It wasn't an unpleasant feel, just something that she wasn't going to allow again if she didn't want to find out what was going on in his head. "Purromiri, Sha Tok-Ran, mirish thral uranya." She spoke softly to him, as her mother had spoken to her father before her own death.

She felt him breathe raggedly next to her, and then something began to happen to his body. A vibration was building in him that was beginning to shake his entire form. She threw up a hasty illusion on his slumbering form and moved from him quickly, leaping up from his body and turning to watch. To her amazement, the shadows from nearby rushed toward his body and attached themselves to him, patching themselves together into something menacing.

Tendrils of darkness ripped away at the roots he had laid around, wings of darkness beating at the ground and anything around them. He brought himself around to his feet and his body had been changed, no longer the human form that it had once been. He was some sort of demonic beast with claws and fangs longer than even her own blade at her waist. He snarled once as got to his feet, his voice coming from some deep recess inside his armored form as he roared to the sky in a voice that would shatter the world.

"**YOU WILL DIE, GALUS!"** The world dimmed around him, or the light receded from him as something began to happen around him. Dark flecks began spinning around his body, dancing crazily as they spun faster and faster till he was at the eye of a small hurricane of black snow. She had seen enough and ran for a small ravine that just had a large enough shadow for her to slip away in. She had just reached it and began to sink into the darkness when a beastial roar howled from behind her and the sound of power unleashed came at her.

She escaped at the last moment into the realm of the shadow ways, the place in-between as it was called. The shadow she had passed through disappeared as if it had never been and as she watched, the shadows of other things in the area from her entrance were washed away into nothingness as whatever was unleashed obliterated the things that could create a path for her to travel to. She breathed heavily as she thought of what she had heard coming from the sleeping person, the man that had metamorphosed within seconds to that behemoth.

He spoke flawless Shadowen, something that only those who are born Shadowen should be able to speak, plus he spoke the name of the leader of the Shadowen. Things he shouldn't know, and yet he voiced them from his own lips. Something was wrong with this and she couldn't place her finger on what it was, it was disturbing to her. Maybe he was a Shadowen in disguise, a very powerful disguise, and then why not kill her? Or was he Mezath Wharlush reborn from the prophecy of the shadow?

She couldn't be sure from the limited knowledge that she had and it didn't matter to her anyways. She had sworn to kill him and nothing was going to deter her. She grasped her sword at her waist and moved in a direction, willed herself toward the nearest shadow. She needed to get out and find that man once more, before someone else killed him before her.

* * *

I guess I never mentioned some previous point back in my story that the woman Kagato was bowing to was in fact the Lady Tokimi from the Tenchi universe. At least someone picked up on that, but better late than never explaining. 

**Meris: **Where the hell did you go to, Biscuit?

O.O (shifts to a whisper) Anyways, when it rains, it pours. Especially for Tom and his problem with the Armor. Now being tagged along by a Shadowen assassin, things just seem to make his life all the more miserable. When exactly did he learn to speak Shadowen anyways?

**Meris: **Whispering isn't going to help you. There's only so much furniture you can hide behind before I burn it all...

(peeks out from the closet) Um...I really need to get going now, before that killer finds me again. Till next time. T.T.F.N.


	10. Chapter Nine

(locks the door behind himself, panting heavily)

If anyone sees Meris around, tell her I'm not here, ok? (mutters something along the lines of psycho under his breath) Anyways, new chapter posting thanks to the magic of spellcheck and double spaced for quality control.

Major notes in this chapter are as follows. Juraians are going to be introduced today, though their race will be referred to as Juridians. I also made a reference to Mickey Mouse in this chapter as well, so I'm going to have to add that part to my disclaimer as well.

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to use any and all characters, settings, voice acting, references to money making commercials, nor Mickey Mouse. I only own Tom, Jason, Meris, Caira, Kalesh, and the Armor of Darkness

* * *

**

**Chapter 8**

**Dance of the**

**Metal Marionette**

It was darker than the sky around it, blacker than an eclipse at noon. A dome of darkness that whirled specks of incandescent energy off and along it's surface, arcs of lightning dancing off its surface even as the globe swelled to immense proportions. The wind from the sudden release of force buffeted at the ship in flight, knocking it first one way then the other.

"Turn the keel into the wind or we'll capsize for sure! Turn, you blasted sky shrikes!" The captain yelled at the top of his lungs, trying to get not only his men under control, but the ship as well.

"Captain, winds are cross cutting over each other!" The man in the crow's nest lashed himself down to the railing tighter. "There's a wall of wind heading right for our ship. Distance! 3,000 keltal!"

"All hands, brace for impact!" The captain took hold of the wheel and attempted to turn the ship into the direction of the wind. Most of the crew was able to grab hold of something before it felt as if they had collided with something physical.

A few were knocked off their feet, two unlucky ones hadn't held on tight enough and were launched into the air that had pulled them free from the ship, screaming as they fell earthward. The ship rocked hard, lurching from side to side as it rode roughshod through the bucking sky, the captain of the flying vessel doing all that he could to keep the thing in one piece. A few more minutes passed before the winds finally began to subside enough to not be afraid of one's life and more afraid of what kind of stress the ship had just put up with. Orders were given for a head count and for everything to be inventoried and secured.

Lans and Rune were the first to appear from below decks, the princess and her guardian appearing from her private quarters. "What happened? Status report, Captain!" Lans looked like he was going to have a bruise over his left eye, but that hardly slowed the old veteran down.

"You want a status report?" The captain had just watched two of his best crewmen go over the side on this fool of a quest and he was not happy. "Why don't you take a look starboard and tell me what it is? Then I'll give you a status report."

Rune and Lans walked over to the side of the ship and looked outward at the black dome bulging out of the earth, the birds flocking into the sky now that it was safe to flee. The priestesses were next to come up from below decks, Miz helping Afera stand if weakly and Shaela glaring darts at anyone that came too close. The cargo holds door flipped open and a rumpled Washu climbed free followed by Jason and a floating Ryoko.

"What in the world just happened?" Miz asked as she eased Afera over to the railing.

"The wind…" Afera raised herself up and looked toward the dark mass of unlight. "The wind is in pain…"

Washu summoned her keyboard and screen and began typing in various commands on the illusionary computer. "It's negative energy. A giant ball of negative energy. I've never seen anything like this before."

"Translation?" Jason asked a bit sarcastically and Ryoko spoke for her mother, already understanding what she was thinking.

"The Armor attacked something." She looked at everyone, impressing upon them what that meant.

"So, that's the potential of the Armor of Darkness." Shaela looked at the dome of energy with a mix of dread and wonder.

"Potential?" Washu said as she looked up and snorted. "That's most likely a reaction to something catching The Armor off guard. That right there is like a swat for you and me." Washu went back to typing into the keyboard till she got a chime from it.

Jason looked down at her as he wrenched his gaze from the sight. "You find something?" he asked and brought everyone's attention to the diminutive scientist.

"In a matter of speaking, yes." Washu keyed something and turned the monitor into a projector, playing the information on the screen into the air before her for all to see. It showed at the center of the dark mass of energy a human form, though the readings could not identify the person or even send back anything on the person. "There's our boy." Washu said confidently as she placed her hands to her hips and beamed pride at herself.

"Your Majesty," The captain called from up on the command deck, gaining the princess's attention, "We have several things wrong with the ship since that rough wind ride we were put on, they'll need repaired if we're going to be able to make it home."

"There's something nearby we can use to repair the ship." Washu offered the princess as the monitor returned back to being 2D in nature. "It's old and hasn't been used in centuries, plus its close by."

"It's also dangerous." Ryoko added her two cents and Washu hushed her.

"If it's dangerous, then we should avoid it at all costs." Miz firmly added her wisdom to the conversation, feeling that her knowledge was the deciding factor.

"More dangerous than that?" Shaela said and pointed outward at the dark object the size of a sunset on the horizon.

"It'll be safe for us." Washu spoke calmly and evenly, not liking the feel of fear that was beginning to ingratiate into everyone's nerves. "As long as I'm there, nothing can go wrong." Washu smiled and placed her and on Rune's hand. "Trust me." She spoke assuredly.

"Oh great." Jason said dramatically and looked toward the sky. "Now we're doomed."

* * *

He dreamed once more, but this time the dream had changed. He was not alone in the dream this time. He could feel them out there, somewhere far away from where he was, but he felt them none the less. He walked toward them, not knowing if they were friend or foe, just needing to talk to someone. The shadows parted for him, a golden light streaming downward upon him illuminating his way as he moved forward. 

He was in a forest, but this wood was old, so ancient that he could almost feel a will in each tree as he passed it. He reached out to touch one of them and stopped his hand short for unknown reasons. He wanted to touch it bad enough that it hurt, yet he felt that doing so would sully the tree he touched in a way he could never understand. For an instant, he thought he saw the leaves on the tree shake in fear of him. That was enough to break the desire, the feel of something dirty along his skin as he left the tree behind leaving a sour taste in his mouth.

They were close now, his footsteps inadvertently taking him closer and closer to this person or persons that were out there in this wood. He peered around one last tree and saw a clearing ahead, stone benches worked in a craftsman's expert hands had beveled the stone to look alive. Each vine and leaf carved out of unliving rock emphasized more and more just how unusual the stone was to be placed in this world.

Two wooden floating logs came first, a glyph was written on the front of each and a lens was placed near the top of each one. The color of the glyph matched the lens color as the creations moved on their own power, apparently searching out the area for something or someone else. They made one circuit around the clearing before returning back the way they came, disappearing from his sight.

Two women appeared, sisters by the angle of their faces, yet they were an obvious age difference apart. The younger had light bluish hair tied back in ponytails, her clothes were tied off around herself in a multitude of colors. The robes looked to be made of some soft material that didn't look anything like silk. The soft freckled face of a child near her pubescence, she looked absolutely at peace with a smile in her eyes and a hop in her step.

The older one drew Tom's attention more than the younger one did, something about her was much different than the younger girl. Her hair was also tied back in ponytails, though much further back on her head near the nape of her neck. Her hair was a soft lavender color and the way she walked with self assurance spoke of open maturity that was not only prim, but proper. Her clothing was a blue to gray scheme that was not only alluring, but stately as if she were prepared for a ball to begin at a moment's notice. The sash tied off around her midriff was of flowers and vines which fit in well with the surroundings set upon a cream color, giving the look of eternal spring.

"You are doing excellent, Sasami. I would hazard to guess that your training is nearly complete." The elder girl spoke with unabashed pride evident on her face.

"One day I hope that I can help you and our family in the hunt, Ayeka." The young girl ran around the small area with her arms spread out to her sides, pretending to fly like the birds.

The elder girl's eyes crinkled in sadness. "Let us hope that that day never comes." She spoke quietly, the other girl not hearing as she imitated something that must of flown from wherever they came from. A moment later, her eyes changed back to that of her previously happy self. "It's time for your last lesson, Sasami." The elder said as she took a seat on one of the several worked benches around the glade.

Sasami came back over and her clothing changed in an instant to that of something else. It was a lot like his own armor, but this was translucent. This armor covered the girl in that it was more costume changes than it was armor. She held a rod in one hand, fairly long and balanced at the edge like a bludgeon with a crystal heart at the end of it. As for her clothing, they were more like that of a cheerleader than anything else.

The elder girl gestured to the left and from nothing an ugly beast popped into existence. The younger girl set to almost immediately, warding off swings and strikes that came at her with the rod like weapon, parrying back her own thrusts toward its soft body. After a few minutes, she yawned dramatically and brushed the shots away from her with one hand, not even trying to attack back any more.

"Sasami, you're supposed to be taking this seriously." Ayeka admonished her with, a stern look setting on her face.

"How can I take this seriously when it's not even a challenge, Sis." She said as she gave the creature a sharp kick to the shin and knocked the undefended head with her rod. The beast fell to the ground and faded away. "That wasn't even a challenge. When are you going to start treating me like a warrior and less like a kid?" The sound she made as she complained her treatment was that of a petulant child.

Ayeka sighed deeply and looked at Sasami. "You want to be a real warrior? Bad enough that you would place your own life at risk for this?" Before Ayeka was created a woman, more that of a doll with lifeless eyes. The one catching thing about this marionette was that it wore armor much like his own, in fact very closely like his own.

Tom's body lurched hard, something feeling like it wanted to break free from him. His vision spun and his eyes watered painfully as he kneeled where he was. He heard the elder girl speaking as if she were far away in some distant part of forever.

"This image here is of someone who had possessed The Armor of Darkness long ago." She was speaking seriously, intoning her words as if someone's life depended on the meaning more than the knowledge. "This is only a mockery of the true armor, but it will fight in the same way as The Armor would fight. Be prepared, my sister."

Tom's body lurched again, this time with a definite purpose as something felt like it had pulled away from his body forcibly. He saw a shadow passing across the ground, something intangible to everything around it, but definitely something as it sped across the open ground and touched the unreal person. The armor pulsed once as the shadow like thing touched the body and shot tendrils not only at the girl in the cheerleader's uniform, but at the robed girl sitting down behind it.

The robed girl looked shocked beyond belief and winked out of existence in her startlement, leaving the cheerleader dressed girl by her self to fight off the possessed illusion. The armor launched tendril after tendril at the girl, who was trying to back away from the creature as fast as she could, yet the tendrils reached farther and farther each attack. In an instant, the armor had wrapped around the handle of her weapon and wrenched it from her grasp in a vicious pull, knocking the girl off balance and off her feet.

Several of the tentacles reared back, forming points that would pierce through the girl in one thrust and each launched simultaneously at her, intent on spearing her to the ground. Tom moved at his speed, knowing what he was doing was foolish, but he hadn't done anything up until this point and the girl didn't deserve this. He placed himself before the girl, his arms spread outward and his eyes trained on the spikes. Each stopped before his body, the transition from one to the other instantaneous as motion became stillness.

The armor bulged and squirmed on the illusionary body, squealing madly that its kill had been taken from it. Its squeal of injustice was turned to pain as both Tom and The Armor dropped to their knees, a lance of light taking The Armor in the back. The older girl had returned from wherever she had disappeared off to, her previous clothing replaced by a gossamer wrap that flowed around her body on a wind of its own.

Tom felt as The Armor fled from the pain the lance did to it, the body fading away in a mote of light that flashed brilliantly once, and then was gone. His body hurt all over, or at least, The Armor hurt all over and Tom was feeling its pain. He curled up, putting his head down on the ground as the feet of the girl ran past him from behind and over to the elder of the two. Looking up bleary eyed, Tom looked from the elder to the younger, and who was cringing behind her sister in fear.

"Are you alright, little girl?" Tom asked her and was brought face to face with a weapon of pure light. His eyes stung as the elder girl put the tip in front of his nose and glared down at him.

"How have you come to be in our dream?" The elder girl demanded of him, her voice calm but commanding.

"I'm not sure how I came to be here." Tom said truthfully and the muscles in the girl's arm flexed mightily. "I felt your presence's here and came to investigate." That seemed to calm the girl down slightly so Tom decided to change questions. "What was that thing that nearly hurt that girl? And you said dream, your dreams?"

The younger girl looked to have apoplexy when he said he had felt them here, for she looked scared and abashed at the same time, and then winked out of existence quickly. "That thing was a nightmare, nothing more." The elder girl said as her clothing snapped into the previous attire she had been wearing before. "And yes, this is a dream that both me and my sister were sharing before you appeared in it."

She walked around him as he stood up, he could feel her eyes as he readjusted himself. "I don't think I've ever seen attire like yours before. From where do you hail?" The girl went and sat back down on the stone bench she had previously taken up residence at before she had disappeared like her sister.

"Krinas." Tom spoke then clamped his mouth shut, realizing just what kind of blunder it was to say something like that.

The girl nodded as if she recognized the name. "It's strange that Krinas of all places would give birth to a dream walker. The worlds are changing more and more with each passing millennia."

Tom stood where he was, not offered to sit and not offered to stay. He wasn't sure what he was to do next. The girl seemed to be eyeing him closely, studying him with her own thoughts in her mind before she finally stood and came over to him. She bowed before him in a practiced grace and smiled softly up at him.

"Thank you for protecting my sister from that creature." Ayeka spoke softly for his ears alone, as if something was listening in on their conversation. "Had fate not given you this talent, my sister might have perished."

Tom was confused. "I thought you said this was a dream? Doesn't that mean that she would have woken up on her own?"

Ayeka shook her head and tried to reach for Tom's hand. He stepped back quickly, some instinct in him warning him to avoid contact. Ayeka looked a bit upset, but she hid it quickly. "With us, we Juridians dream real dreams. Should we die here, it's like we died in the flesh."

The Armor was screaming at him now, begging to be gone from this person. He felt himself beginning to fade away back into consciousness even as he tried to hold onto this dream. "I think I'm beginning to wake up now, I can't seem to hold on anymore." His voice sounded hollow to his own ears as his vision began to blur.

"We will talk again when I feel like it." Her voice sounded in his head, and he felt something touch him in his mind. "I will find you."

Tom awoke at the bottom of a crater, the flatness of such a thing so unnatural that it could have been caused by only one thing. The Armor was shuddering in his mind, trembling in…..fear?….as it huddled in the darkest corner of his head. His body did hurt all over, but that probably had more to do with how he had slept than what had happened to him in that dream.

Tom placed a hand to his temple, trying to feel the place where it had felt he had been touched at. The Armor wailed in his head sorrowfully, muttering to itself as he remembered that brief touch. Anything that shut it up was a blessing, as far as he was concerned. He got to his feet unsteadily, looking up at the edges of the crater he was in.

He was at the exact bottom of the giant hole that seemed to have been blasted away. Parts of the wall still hissed and steamed from the heat that had been poured into this area. Climbing out of this hole was going to be brutal, but it was still possible to make it out of here without climbing at all. Tom guesstimated the distance from where he stood and how high the cliff edge was, then crouched and leapt upward with everything he had.

When he landed two feet away from where he jumped from, he knew something was wrong. He tried running as fast as he could up the side of the crater and made it only 250 feet before he was winded. For some reason, he had lost his speed, and it was an unsettling thought that if he lost his speed, his healing was gone as well. Hoping that he didn't run into the crazy blue girl, Tom began climbing his way out of a very deep hole he had most likely gotten himself into.

* * *

She hovered above the canopy of the forest, the faint traces of energy still in the air from some type of weapon. The metal woman turned in place as her sensors calibrated themselves to key in exact locations and trajectory of attack. Even as she waited for the information to coalesce into a reasonable attack vector, she was moving toward the destroyed area. She was programmed to observe as well as destroy, after all. 

Coming in sight of the impact zone, she began recording all information of damage, impact radius, pattern of blast discharge, even the overall effective use of assimilating such weaponry into the current facilities that she guarded. She left nothing to miss as she scanned the contours of the cauldron, and for her scrutiny, she observed an enemy.

He had just made it to the lip of the destruction, the abrasions on his hands the evidence that he had crawled out of the hole in the ground. His breathing was a bit rushed, as if he had exerted himself fiercely and his body was slightly out of shape with many impurities coursing through his body. She immediately classified this being as a hostile and approached it, her staff bearing down at the person as she reduced her height in the air.

He saw her as he laid flat on the ground, his upper body rising off the grass as soon as it had touched. She hovered off and in front of him, her weapon tip pointed squarely at his chest in a menacing fashion. "State the reason for your incursion into this territory." She ordered brusquely and a bit cold, her programming taking hold once more.

The man sat there and looked dumbfounded up at her before answering. "I'm lost." was the only thing he said and the stress monitor said that this was true. Still, better to be sure than to let a potential threat go.

"Then what is your intended goal, if you are as lost as you say you are." She never let her weapon waver from its target, a single command thought and this threat would be no more.

"That one's easy to answer." He laid back onto the ground once more, but still kept an eye on her. "I'd like to get off this damn planet!" He yelled his frustration at no one in particular. The metal woman's hand tightened on her weapon however.

"Tell me who you work for." She had heard enough, and now she needed some reason to bring this spy in without arousing his suspicions. "I will relay the appropriate orders for a ship to be prepared for you, depending on if your commander is known to us."

He moved to his feet deftly while maintaining a crouch close to the ground. She brought her weapon to her shoulder and aimed along the shaft, though she hardly needed to do so to target him with pin point accuracy. He watched her for a second with an unreadable look on his face before he smiled wickedly.

"My Boss is known as Mickey Mouse!" He yelled at her and lunged to his left.

She fired a shot off at him and he broke movement, planting his feet early and jumping back away from his previous landing spot. A charged particle shot hit the ground uselessly where he would have landed had he continued to move the way he was going, spraying dirt into the air and obscuring her view of him as he ran behind the debris and into the trees. She had missed, and it was very uncommon of her to miss, but her targeting hadn't lost him just yet.

He was moving back and forth from tree to tree as he moved away from the crater where she hovered at. She took careful aim once more and fired a shot into the trees, sizzling into non existence a tree trunk nearly as wide as her staff was long. He must of heard the snap of charged energy coming at him for he ducked down under the shot, letting it pass harmlessly over top of him and blasting even more ground into the sky.

She rescanned the person, trying to lock onto why he was able to avoid her attacks, but that was pushed back to inconvenience as an alarm turned on in her head. An outpost had come back on, and the main computer she was linked with had told her that all outposts had been vacant for some time now. The outposts were all ID locked so that only a code from the scientists that had inhabited the old facilities would be ale to activate them. She cross referenced the ID to the database, running a check on all living personelle and coming up with one match, though the data showed that this person had been dead for some time.

There was a dim sense of loss, of longing in the back of her persona, that thing that her mother had called 'self.' This person was relegated to insignificance as the confiscation of an outpost took precedence. Setting her body for flight mode once more, she lifted off the ground and set to the orders that the Valhalla Initiative deemed important. Destruction of all hostile forces with extreme prejudice.

* * *

Ayeka woke slowly, letting her spirit remember the person and to tie her mind to his. She had done something that wasn't right, but this person intrigued her. She had never met a dream walker before, plus he wasn't afraid of that nightmare, though from her conversation with him he didn't know what a dream walker was. Sasami was already sitting next to her bed, a look of tears in her eyes as she squeezed her sister's hand. 

"I thought…." Sasami couldn't say what was in her head, the thought too unbearable.

"I was never in any real danger, sister." Ayeka sat up in bed then patted her sister's hand softly as the feeling of that boy settled into her head. "I am more prepared for nightmares than what you are. I have fought my share of them." She had seen two battles with The Armor, the last she had no choice but to help or watch as her mother would have been slain.

As if thinking of their mother had summoned her, Masaki opened the door and peered in on both of them. "It is good that both of you are awake. We received an order from the Circle of the Trees." She waited as both Sasami and Ayeka exchanged glances between each other before she continued. "They have felt The Armor once again. Your father has been sent to them to receive the orders personally."

Sasami shuddered involuntarily and Ayeka just looked with a cool expression, one that hid her true feelings. Sasami spoke for both of them, "Will we be taking the Fuhnao, or the Yukinojo?"

"If the threat is important enough to warrant it, we'll take the Fuhnao." When it came to The Armor, the threat was always important. "Gather up some clothes, but keep it light. We don't intend on staying there for a long period of time. The war on Krinas is nearly at its end and the civilization is losing."

The name of the planet brought Ayeka's attention up from her musings of the boy she could feel, if barely. "Krinas?" Ayeka was shocked that the boy she had spoken to in the dream was on the same planet as The Armor, "Mother, are you sure The Circle said Krinas?"

Masaki eyed Ayeka once for asking something that she had all but been assured of. Ayeka turned her eyes down, ashamed that she doubted what she had been told. Masaki didn't criticize her for voicing the question and she turned and closed the door behind her as she left the room behind and her daughters. Sasami hopped to with barely held excitement as she began pulling open drawers of clothes and selecting those that she would have otherwise been reticent to wear on any other day.

Ayeka arose from her own bed and assembled a small stack of dresses that she knew she was going to need. She even pulled out two sets of clothes that were as patched as a worn out rag. These were obviously not dresses, so faded and stitched together as they were. She placed these on top of the other dresses and tied them together as she went over in her mind the last encounter with The Armor.

Her father opened the door not long afterwards, maybe minutes from when her mother had left them to their task. His hair was shot through with faded silver in his hair of dark black, the beard that nearly touched the lower part of his chest swung slightly as he leaned into their room. Sasami was still selecting out what had now become a sizable pile and had not seen that their father was now standing in the doorway.

"We leave now." His voice was hard and cold and it brought Sasami spinning around with an undignified squawk. "The council has assured me that the armor has returned at that it will be found on Krinas. They have already sent out warnings to all space faring ships and to Galaxy Police Headquarters that Krinas is to be cut off from all trade and travel."

Sasami was grabbing what she could carry as Ayeka lifted her smaller bundle and held it close to her body. She bowed once to her father and intoned to him, "By decree of the Circle of Trees, The Armor shall be destroyed." Sasami did the same, if a bit more unpracticed than her elder sister.

"So is the job of all Juridians. We are the sword that will pierce and rend, ending the long night that The Armor would have made of the universe." He touched his forehead with his right hand then kissed those fingers. Ayeka stepped forward and he pressed his fingertips to her lips softly. "May you return home, My daughter." He spoke with reverence then did the same with Sasami.

Ayeka was already on her way to the ship that would be awaiting them outside, ready to take them to the space port above the planet. The old nightmares resurfaced in the back of her mind like old ghosts that never quiet go away, and she held them back by not acknowledging them. She was sure that if she ever did, she would go quite mad.

* * *

The old ruins of the outpost hadn't let nature back in once it had taken over the area, and Washu was glad to see that some things hadn't changed. It had shifted down to power down mode when the scheduled check in hadn't happened and all the security locks were in place, which made the outpost more like an impregnable fortress. The outer alarm sensors weren't working, but those were minor annoyances for her. Washu watched out the window of the supply center as her terminal interfaced with the controls and was downloading all information that the base had gathered in the last 500 years. 

"This place is pretty impressive, Washu." Jason's voice was back in the hanger bay where copies of the ship outside were hanging from their own separate slots in the ceiling. "How did you know this place was here, anyways?"

"I used to work here, a long time ago." She spoke to herself, remembering the happiness once more with a sense of nostalgia. Lans and Rune had taken up residence in one of the harder to reach areas of the supply center and surrounding themselves with more than one guard. Even priestess Miz was nearby, in case something other than normal came out of the shadows and attacked them.

Afera was outside helping the ship's crew to fasten the new bindings down to the outside of the ship where either seals had failed or blots had been shaken free. Someone had insisted on going to find the bodies of the two mariners that had fallen off the ship, but the captain had quickly squashed the idea, reminding them that they were all in hostile territory and no where near safer than being here. Shaela was all too aware of this little fact and stood by the entrance of the hangar as she stared out toward the trees at the far end of the grounds.

She looked around at the metal buildings and felt with her elemental affinity for something that held a spark of fire in it. She got nothing back from these constructs of mankind left to rot in the wilderness, not even the sensation that anything here could ignite with but a calling to it. This place to her was so dead and yet nothing here could actually fit into that description. Ryoko didn't feel safe here either. Old ghosts, Washu assumed, though she would have hoped there would be at least a few good memories left. Obviously, this was not the case.

Jason came back with a few extra cartridges and power cells for the various fire arms he held on his personage, and a few new additions he had scared up from what she assumed would have been the weapons locker. All was going well and the last panel was being put into place when Ryoko fired a shot down toward the far end of the compound. Jason ran out the door and stood by Shaela, a look of concentration crossing his eyes as he raised a rifle to his shoulder and sighted.

A green light flashed from the treetops and lanced downward at him, taking him in the chest and lifting him off his feet with a thunderous sound. He flew backward to the back of the hanger and impacted roughly with a bulkhead that bent irregularly to conform to his body. Shaela had managed to jump clear from him before he got hit and saved herself the headache she would have had had she continued to have stood by him. Ryoko fired another energy shot at the floating target only to have it batted back at her, a hasty dodge allowing her to miss the batted projectile.

"What the devil is going on, Washu?" Lans yelled over the sound of high energy shots being exchanged and exploding nearby.

"We're under attack, what's it look like to you?" Washu said as she keyed in the code for the doors to close. The hanger doors began sliding together with a grinding of gears, though it was too slow for Washu's tastes.

Jason had fallen from where the metal had wrapped around his body, but he landed on his feet instead of falling to the ground inertly. He rushed the doors, moving past Lans and Rune at a run and making it outside before he could be sealed in with the others. The attacker had managed to make it to the ground within the compound and was laying down heavy fire from the staff she was carrying, keeping Ryoko moving at all times. Shaela attempted to command fire from her hands and throw it at the metal doll of a person, yet the fire dissipated before it could reach her.

Jason had lost the rifle when he had been knocked off his feet, yet that didn't stop him in the least bit. Raising two hand guns off his hips and pointing them at the person, he let loose with a volley of energy shots as fast as he could pull the triggers. The metal girl stopped firing at Ryoko who had finally taken refuge behind the overhang of a roof and deflected energy shots off her staff that she spun before her. Jason pulled the trigger of his gun on empty chambers and began moving for cover even as the girl targeted him and shot him once more, this time hitting him harder than before.

He didn't just leave his feet this time, he actually went through the wall of one of the other buildings nearby. The metal ripped at his clothing, pulling away at his jeans and leaving them a shredded waste. His shirt had been vaporized after the first attack, and now his chest was a brilliant red from the second shot, yet he still felt nothing of harm. He wasn't sure if he would ever get used to that feeling, but it was definitely coming in handy this time.

He came out the other side of the building as all this went through his head, leaving another sizable hole through the back wall and finally through the outer guard wall. Skipping across the ground like a stone, he finally came to a stop after the third tree he had crashed through and the fourth one had taken a huge bruising. He was to his feet and on his way back before he had registered how far he had been knocked away, not bothering to stop and look at the destruction his body had been used for when he hadn't had control of it.

His friends were in trouble and if he could get close enough to her, he could end the problem of the attack. Before he could get back to the compound though, something rushed by him, something incredibly fast. He stopped just long enough to register that it had been someone and not something before he picked his pace up and moved faster. If he was right, he was going to be needed even more now than before.

* * *

Shaela had watched as the fool had been sent flying through a wall this time, how he had survived the first shot was still beyond her. Maybe all off worlders were made of stronger stuff than anyone on this planet. The flying woman, Ryoko, flew overtop of the metal creature shaped like a woman, firing straight down on her from above as she passed from one roof to another. The creature raised her staff above her and blocked each shot deftly while looking at the fire priestess as if debating on who was the bigger threat. Before Ryoko could change her course, the robot pivoted and aimed without looking. 

The energy blast caught her in the midriff, knocking not only the air from her lungs, but the fight from her as well. She fell and bounced limply from the building with a sickening thud before she finally crashed painfully to the ground below. The automaton turned back to the fire priestess and began walking to her unconcerned, as if nothing the fire priestess could do was going to stop her from tearing her head off. Indeed, The Fire Priestess lit into her with everything thing she had in her limited arsenal of pyrokinetics, only to have the machination of humanity walk continuously without any sign of discomfort.

Shaela knew she had lost as the machine placed the tip of the staff to her body and the sound of energy building up from it began. There wasn't anything human in the face, not even from the eyes as it was about to kill her. Somehow, that did nothing more than enrage Shaela.

"Die." The machination uttered and the sound of a discharge sounded. Shaela waited for the feel of oblivion that was soon to engulf her, or at least the sense of pain that would end this life. She wasn't expecting Him to speak in her face.

"Get the hell out of here before we both get killed!" Tom yelled at her to move even as he snapped a kick so hard, the sound of bone breaking in his leg could be heard even to her own ears.

Shaela opened her eyes, not believing what she was seeing as the doll looked not only shocked, but ridiculous as its head was bent the wrong way on its neck. The face was bent 90 degrees the wrong way, chin pointed to the left and body falling away. Tom was knelt down next to her, blood already congealing from the wound sealing shut on him as he lunged on his other leg and grabbed the metal construct and thrust both him and it away from her.

It tried to grab hold of him, still fighting even though it was obviously damaged badly. He slipped from its embraced and stood on now both healed legs even as the machine grabbed the ground and spun in its own attack. Tom stepped back out of its attack area then back in as it missed, getting in close where he could do the most good with his enhanced reflexes. The thing came to his feet, analyzing the speed with which Tom was moving and recalibrating its own movements to be at the same speed as its attacker.

It was, and Shaela would later on disagree with this though, beauty. Both man and machine pressed the limits of each other by attacking from every conceivable angle. Hands, feet, legs, elbows, knees, any part of their body they could use to strike with they were. It looked choreographed in simplicity, yet the crimson streamers coming from Tom's body were the evidence that this was a deadly battle of skill that one or the other was going to lose quite soon.

At a speed that even Tom could not hope to keep up with, the metal doll caught him in a throw and launched him so hard, a wet smear of blood bloomed out from the impact. Tom didn't have time to scream as the staff was launched from where it had landed and impaled him all the way up to the bladed end. He hung from the staff, mere inches from the ground as he pulled with everything he had to pull free of the wall.

The fist took him totally undefended, his head blowing apart in pieces that would make a shattered pumpkin look pretty. His body went limp even as his body twitched spasmodically, the nerve endings in what was left of him getting the raw power from the blow. She wrenched the staff from his body and turned back to face the last standing person who could possibly be any threat to her and aimed, not bothering to get close this time.

Jason exploded out from the wall behind the doll before she had time to register that he was there, and for him, it was enough time. He wrapped around the woman in a hug from behind and squeezed with everything he had in one go, before the girl could fight back. The sound of metal crushed to scrap underneath him and the sudden release of a squawk of shock from the broken thing was all Jason needed to hear. He released it long enough for it to try and regain its feet, life still working in what was left of it before Jason hammered it from behind with interlaced fingers. It shattered under his great strength into scrap, the head flying off on its own as sparks flew freely from it.

Shaela hadn't moved from where Tom had saved her and now that the fight was over, she still couldn't believe that he had died for her. Jason took one look at the body and shook his head sadly before he went over to the fallen Ryoko and picked her up gently. He walked away from what was left of the metal construct, unconcerned that it was still sparking and crackling with dying energy and leaking fluids.

She was in a daze as to what she was doing, only realizing that someone was holding onto her shoulder before she realized it. Afera looked down at her and Shaela swore she had said something, but she couldn't remember what it was. Afera spoke again, and this time Shaela understood. "What the hell do you mean, We're bringing him back with us?" Shaela must have been even more shocked than what she thought, she was slumped on the ground where she had been saved at.

"I'm saying that Washu says he'll recover. She wants us to bring him back." Afera was being as gentle as she could about what she was saying, but even she didn't believe that he was going to come back to life this time.

"Of all the bloody…" Shaela brushed off Afera's hand and made her way over to Washu, who was helping the crew direct the ship out of the hanger. "I am not bringing him back." She snapped off at the diminutive scientist who looked at her as if she had said something childish. "I'm going to give him a proper burial."

Washu turned to face Shaela, bringing her considerable wisdom and scientific genius to confront the priestess. "He'll be quite upset when he recovers, enough so that he may even want to hurt someone for doing something like that to him."

"You think he's going to recover from something like that?" Shaela said and waved her hand back toward the headless corpse.

"I think he'll do more than just recover." Washu spoke assuredly as if she already knew what was going to happen. "I think he'll wake up with a splitting headache the likes of which haven't been heard of in years. I think that someone will have to get rip snorting drunk to even get close enough to have the headache that he's going to have when he recovers."

Afera had draped a sheet over what was left of Tom. Levitating him with her control of the very air, she lifted his body up and flew up with it to the cargo hold of the ship, lowering herself and the body down to where she could move it to a room by itself. Shaela watched as Afera disappeared over the side of the ship and made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat before she headed for the ship herself.

Washu merely shook her head and picked up the only salvageable piece from the robot, the head that had been knocked free from the body. Maybe what was left of her daughter could tell them all what had happened to her and just who had awakened her in the first place.

Kalesh looked up from the table and out the window. "For tonight, that will have to be the entire story." He stood slowly, his legs and back popping their protest of the movement he was asking of them. Caira was looking bleary eyed from her seat, sleep sinking in on her quickly as the sun's light finally faded from the sky entirely. Lighting a candle from in the homestead, he came back and walked the tired child through the living room of modest creation and up the stairs to the bedrooms.

Caira came to the tops of the stairs and walked slowly behind the old man, shuffling her feet softly behind him till something called to her. She stopped before a closed door and reached up to the handle, trying to open it. The brief rattle it gave off under her attempt stopped Kalesh and turned him around to see what she was up to.

"Child, what are you doing?" Kalesh pointed down the hall to the open door. "Your room is over there." He said to her and tried to take her hand from the doorknob.

There came an audible click as the lock on the door opened itself and with a turn, the girl walked into the room. Kalesh stood in the doorway watching with an amazed look on his face as Caira walked over to the bed and climbed up into it. She placed the sleeping Ryo-Ohki down next to her on the other pillow then climbed under the covers still clothed. She fell asleep with a deep sigh and Kalesh could only watch as she fell into a restful slumber that he doubted he could wake her from.

"Interesting." The old man muttered as he walked away from the door and closed the one that had been meant for Caira. "I wonder if you still can touch reality, my old friend." He mused to himself as he went to his own room and shucked his clothing from his shoulders, pulling out a new robe for him to use in the morning.

As was his usual trick, he felt the house with his mind to make sure everything wasn't disturbed, skipping over the room that Caira slept in. His mind never seemed to be able to penetrate that one room and he was never allowed into it. In fact, had you looked at the door, there would be no sign of a keyhole, but He doubted that Caira would even notice something like that in the morning. Maybe it was still possible to be able to reach the physical world from the world of the dead.

* * *

Caira awoke in the morning to the gentle licking of the cabbit, Ryo-Ohki. She scratched between its ears and smiled at it as it nuzzled her cheek before she sat up and looked around the room. A single rocker sat in the corner of the room next to the window, a small yarn basket sat next to it with a metal rod with a hook on the end of it. The bureau stood forlornly against the wall next to the doorway, its doors slightly ajar. The room felt sad, lonely sad as only someone living could feel yet she sensed that this room was alive in a way that she couldn't explain. In the window next to the rocker sat a plant that she had never seen before, its sweet fragrance wafted through the room with a taste of fondness. 

She couldn't explain why, but she felt at home here that she had never felt at her own home. This one room welcomed her with everything it had to offer and nothing but caring came from every piece of furniture save one. There was a trunk at the far end against the wall. A solitary piece of furniture made of banded metal and wood so old as to be ancient. Fingerprints had been left in the dust that coated the chest, a mark that someone had once wanted in and out of it, yet no sign otherwise that the trunk had ever been opened.

It was the one out of place thing in this room, where no dust or dirt could be seen anywhere, not even on the floor. Caira watched as Ryo-Ohki hopped out of the room and deciding that she wanted to be gone from this room, she followed as well. She roamed around the house, finding the living room with its only chair and fireplace cold, a footstool looked to have been recently made and placed alongside the chair told that the old man had already been up and about. The kitchen was as it was last night as it was now, spotless and empty, with only a few slices of cooling bacon and a hunk of cheese and breads the signs that anyone had been here.

She took a piece of the bacon and looked outside as she gnawed on it, wondering if her good fortune was going to last her any longer than the confines of the house. The tub that was sitting nearby the only sign that he had progressed himself outside of the house, steam still rising from the water showing that it was still warm enough to be tolerable. Not knowing when the old man would return, she opted for the bath first and the food second.

She made short work of both water and food, finishing in little more than an hour. Her old clothes back on her, she was about to go exploring outside the house when the old man returned. He laid two bundles of clothes in front of her on the kitchen table, and then sat down as he rubbed the small of his back sorely.

"I hope these fit you, seeing as how you're now going at least two days in the same clothes as what you wore yesterday." Kalesh said a bit winded from walking. The girl eyed the clothes critically and the old man accusingly. "The seamstress assured me that your measurements wouldn't change in the short time she had saw you, so she made you new clothing from the old measurements."

Without a sign or show of gratitude, the girl plucked up the clothing and took them back to her bedroom. She filled the bureau with the clothing, giving it the purpose it was made for and eyed the room once more. Again, only the chest was the dusty thing in the room, the one thing that refused to change. She went downstairs and found the old man in the living room, lighting a fire in the fireplace and settling himself into the chair.

"Why is it that the chest in my room is so dirty?" She asked the old man and he looked at her curiously.

"The entire room should be covered in dust. I have never been able to unlock the door to that room." He sat back and sighed softly to himself as he relaxed. "The chest, however, is Tom's whereas the rest of the room was his wife's." The old man smiled at a secret and gave voice to it a second later. "He always swore he'd never get married, how time changes a person."

"Who did he marry?" The girl sat down on the stool, though moved the stool away from the old fart, still not trusting him completely.

"That's later." Kalesh raised a finger and smiled at Caira as he thought back. "Tom had just died most violently, but at least they had found him and were taking him back home with them to Floreshtica." The images unfolded from the man's mind as he once again began to tell of the long ago day…


	11. Chapter Ten

Well, one thing can definitely be said about me when it comes to this story. I want it posted and done with as fast as I can make it. o.O

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights or marketing to use any and all references and/or characters from Elhazard or Tenchi series. I only own Tom, Jason, Meris, and the Armor of Darkness

* * *

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**Chapter 9**

**Death and the **

**Dreams That Come**

He couldn't wake up, no matter how badly he wanted to. He knew this, but that didn't make it any easier for him to deal with. He was lost, alone in the darkness, the thing in the back of his consciousness gone to ground and he was left to float in nothingness. He was going to go mad, he knew it. There was nothing but him here and he was going mad. It was almost a comforting thought except he couldn't go mad.

The thing in him would want nothing more than for him to go mad, so it could destroy. He knew its wants as if they were his own, time alone in his head had given him the feel of the connection between him and The Armor. He could feel that connection, even now. It was the only thing he could feel here and it was something that wanted to make him vomit, a line of filth and profanity that only a mind could interpret.

He found that if he concentrated hard enough, he thought he had a physical body once again. He would practice martial arts, the art of balance between oneself and that of one's other self. In a sense, it was not so much an art of defense, but an art that allowed the person to know themselves in ways they may not understand, to show them who and what they were. What he already knew of himself was not pretty, but maybe there was something else to him that was not that evil part, the balance of his karma.

She found him, he knew not how long he had been here, but he knew he was not alone when she appeared near him. He was in the middle of an exercise, he had time to develop his own style here and he was trying to put it to good use. Hands to either side of him, one leg bent and crooked back to the other leg, it looked as if he was maintaining a balance along the edge of a seat. She stayed silent and watched him till he moved, and he didn't keep her waiting long as he moved from the stance back to a normal standing position.

He turned in place and looked at her, and to him, she was radiant. Here in this darkness, she was the ray of hope that dying men grasp for before succumbing to the darkness. Her hair was just as he remembered it to be, tied back in dual ponytails, but she now wore what he would have considered a martial arts gi, or fighting clothes. She looked like she was about to begin moving in her own martial arts at any moment, which made her look all the more beautiful.

She tilted her head to one side and her smile slipped as she felt for him. It wasn't that she had moved, but that his mind felt as if it were being caressed by an unseen hand. "You were recently hurt." She said softly, though not soft enough that he could miss it.

"I underestimated someone." Tom said, an answer, and yet, not totally an admittance.

"You were hurt." She was suddenly next to him, he hadn't seen her move. She had her hand near his head before he moved reflexively away from her.

"I will live." Tom said, then stopped and wondered. Could he really recover from such an obvious wound?

"I had not seen you in my or my sister's dreams of late, and had wondered if you were all right." She spoke lightly as she began her own fighting style. Tom took a seat on nothingness and watched her as she moved with a fluidity that reminded him of a supple tree in the wind.

"It would be inappropriate of me to look in on dreams that are not my own." Tom said and thought right afterwards, "I might walk in on something that just wouldn't be appropriate."

Ayeka's stance wavered and she glanced at Tom before she smiled slightly. "It is possible. My sister would have such an active imagination." He heard her, but she hadn't moved her lips. He had been watching her face and body so intently that e didn't actually realize what had happened till he thought about it. His cheeks lit up with embarrassment as she continued.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply…" Her chuckle stifled any more comment from him and his cheeks burned hotter. He thought it would be wiser for him to shut up before he put his other foot in his brain.

"You're forgiven." She said to him verbally, though the feeling coming from her was amusement.

Tom stood back up and began his own fighting style, deciding he needed to get his mind off that track before it went some place inappropriate. He killed all that was him down to a flame in his mind and focused his will through it with every attack he made, lashing out with strikes that were intended to cripple or maim. He felt her on the outside of his mind, a dim sense that was damped down by his restricted perceptions and didn't realize that she had gotten close till a block came out of nowhere from his left.

He looked at her surprised and she was crying slightly, tears of pain coming from her eyes as sensation started coming back in. He could feel her there just like the other thing in his head, and with cutting off everything around him, he had done the same to her. He had hurt her unintentionally and the only way she could have gotten through to him was to break his concentration, though it had been dangerous for her to try. He had sensed her close by, he knew her not as a threat, yet she had gotten very close to a few of his shots and put herself in harms way to stop him.

"Don't do that again." She looked at him, the tears drying on her face. "Don't ever cut yourself off like that again. You're not dead."

Tom stood back from her, or at least, he thought he did. When he moved, things around him blurred till Ayeka was far from him. She was but a light speck there on the sea of darkness and he could still feel her there in his mind, a hurt that was heartbreaking, if you had a heart. "You don't know what I will have to go through, what I must do." He sent to her along that connection that was theirs alone. "I don't want to be alone, and I don't want to make others hurt because of my mistakes. I will be here in this darkness for a long time, because it is my darkness that I chose to wear."

Tom's breath misted as his awareness faded, he wasn't waking up, but merely falling asleep. "I am what I became because I was too weak for anything else." was the last thing he sent to her before he fell into sleep.

Ayeka could feel him off there in the darkness. He was like an open wound to her, a hurt that went to the soul, yet left neither mark nor trace of passing. Her training in the healing ways wanted to help him in some way, yet she felt that helping him was the last thing he wanted. She had felt his consciousness weaken but not fade away, as if he slept. She had heard of sleeping in a dream, but never thought she'd see it happen.

She was next to him in a flash, distance here as ephemeral as the act of breathing. There was no air here, but your body did it without thinking. She was going to be in cold sleep for a while longer, maybe for days as they traveled through hyperspace. She wondered if she could do the same as what he did, sleeping in this in-between place. She imagined his arms around her and they were as his hold was gentle but firm. She could feel the breath from his nose as it brushed across her hair, her body bending to fill the gap his curled form allowed. She closed her eyes and followed that string that bonded him to her now, seeing just how far rabbit hole led.

* * *

It was a scene out of a nightmare. Maybe it was a nightmare, but the feel of this dream was so real, it was hard to tell. She stood before a doorway that was sealed off before her, yet the door was strangely transparent, like made of morning mist in the air. The sound of a whip slashing through the air and impacting against something wet and meaty filled the air around her. She was afraid to step through the door into something that caused stark fear in her, but she made her mind resolute, and stepped through.

He hung from the ceiling, the man that she had connected to, and the rope disappearing into the darkened ceiling beyond. Blood ran in rivulets along his back and off onto the carpet below him, a sizable pool had built underneath his swaying form. The lash came from the top of a dais, wielded by a blue skinned man with cruel eyes. There was a woman next to him, coppery skin and shapely, almost seductive. She seemed to enjoy watching as the blue skinned man ripped into the man's body over and over again, her own body writhing in pleasure as his body was torn and shredded.

She thought there was a third person there, near them in the shadows. The sense that something more powerful, more menacing than the other two would not leave under any circumstances. Her gaze though was pulled from that corner of darkness as the whip went silent and the sounds of creaking could be heard in the room.

"He will not utter anything, it is as you said." The blue skinned man wiped at his brow, sweat beading on his forehead and damping his jerkin.

"He screamed earlier when I had my warriors rip the flesh from his body, but that lasted for only an hour." The woman sounded almost amused and disappointed at the same time, she sat forward from the cushions and propped her hands before her. Gazing down at the hanging man, she smiled wickedly. "I wonder if he will scream more when we bring in his play toy."

The hanging man's head jerked slightly, a little life coming back into his eyes. He wasn't seeing her, she knew that by the way he looked through her. She tried to contact him, relax him that it was only a dream. She was startled when a woman of blue skin appeared just before her, trussed with her arms behind her back. She was knelt down and away from the hanging man, yet the illusion was enough to rouse something in him as he struggled to move.

"Don't hurt her." He rasped out of a throat that was raw from screaming, a slight grating in his voice all the evidence he would show that he felt anything.

"He cares more for her than his own well being." The woman giggled delight that she had coaxed a response through him, if using the blue man's skill to get it.

"He is too weak." The blue skinned man sneered contempt. "Showing vulnerability, any vulnerability, leaves you open for pain." The whip swished through the air and came down on the woman's back, issuing a scream of pain.

He watched as she writhed from the first blow, her body moving weakly as she tried to squirm out of the area that the whip could reach, yet she was not fast enough as the whip made a second mark on her. She screamed again and this time it was matched by his voice, anger running through his veins and desperation empowering him. He strained against his restraints, pulled weakly from the wrong angle his arms were held at, futilely attempting to fight free even as a third lash striped the woman's back.

"God, please forgive me….." He whispered to no one, something that he no longer believed in even as he uttered the words. Ayeka couldn't watch this anymore. She stepped away from the dream, from this painful enactment that she had been privy to.

She awoke briefly in the deep sleep tube, the force of wanting to wake defying even the machines that induced her long sleep for the travel. Ice formed along the side of her face where the tears ran and she sobbed once before even her body could no longer resist the pull. She was brought back down into a state of hibernation, something like rest and yet not sleep, where even the consciousness doesn't exist, only need. She would not go back to that, not any time soon. She needed to rest.

* * *

He opened his eyes slowly. His head hurt something fierce and his chest felt like dead weight. He sat up slowly on a slab of rock, the smell of mildew and decay filling this darkness he sat in. There was a ringing in his ears, something he was beginning to grow accustomed to, but left a very dark and painful hole with what that meant.

He was in a mausoleum of sorts, the dead arrayed in various states. Some were sitting on thrones holding scepters of power or state while others laid in rest, the dresses and clothing they all wore were not something he'd of like to of found on his own body. In a way, he felt at peace here more than he could out amongst the living, for here he belonged. He knew however that this was something he would never experience for himself.

It was simple enough to find the way out as he scented the air till the stale smell began to thin. The stone doors that sealed the tomb shut, however, looked to be a bigger problem for him. Pressing with all his might, he was barely able to get the doors to move, let alone open.

"This sucks royal." Tom thought to himself as he pressed against the doors once more. "Maybe next time I'll stay dead, that'd do me an added favor." He set his feet and pressed as hard as he could, only to have the door open freely and swing away

"Ack!" He fell on his face into the grass, the taste of dirt and green stuff making a nasty meal of the earth.

"Did you have a nice trip?" Jason asked him as he grabbed hold of the back of his shirt and lifted him up off the ground like some stray kitten. Placing his friend back on the ground, he couldn't help but smile at him, seeing that he truly was all right.

"Jason?" Tom looked at his friend and poked his stomach, which jammed his finger into his socket and elicited a curse.

"Welcome back to the living." Washu had just finished typing on the illusory computer as it faded away. She crossed her arms before her and beamed a smile at Tom. Tom glanced down at Washu then looked around the sky and the area around them, obviously looking for someone else. "If your looking for Ryoko, she's probably still in bed with the monster of a hangover." A muttered comment about liquor and minors crossed her lips, but the smile returned quickly.

Tom glanced around at his surroundings now, and for good reason. The sound of marching feet could be heard coming from the other side of a huge building, a palace by his assumption. There were no graves nearby but a lot of tenders to the gardens here that stretched for a good ways off and fountains placed just so.

"You have interesting tastes in the company you keep." Washu said as she followed Tom's eyes around the garden, her feet walking back toward the entrance into the palace. Tom stared at Washu's back for a moment before he came up beside her.

"What the hell does that mean?" Tom asked. Washu smiled smugly, for once getting the better of the fast thinker.

"Only that to make allies of a shadowen, it's unheard of." Washu was walking deliberately slow, as if delaying what she knew would be an interesting reaction to her study.

"Come on, Washu." Jason had been walking behind both of them, trying to keep quiet, but not being able to any longer. "You don't think Tom would have anything to do with that woman, do you?"

That brought Tom's head around. "Woman?" Tom thought rapid fire of a shadowed woman he had encountered, one that had swore to end his life for him. "She's here?"

"More than just here," Washu was relishing this, she could see the muscles in Tom's legs and chest tightening, "She's to be executed at any moment now, by order of the King and Queen."

Tom was there only a moment in stunned disbelief before he stepped through the castle, heading as high as he could go, then as low. He searched every room, every cupboard, and every crevice in a single mindedness that would make a bull envious. He had just reached the dungeons of the castle when he heard the command to take aim. A contingent of Bowman had taken aim into a dungeon that had light flooding it from every angle, so no shadow could hide. The blue skinned woman was the one that he had saved on the beach, her eyes were red and swollen from a beating she had received, yet she stood defiant of the assassins.

"Fire!" A man yelled as he dropped his arm. The arrows left the bows but never made it into the dungeon as Tom intercept every shot before they had a chance to enter the bars of the dungeon. Every guard jumped back in surprise, Tom holding the arrows in his hands and looking very ticked off.

"Who beat her?" His voice was low and he must look a sight with the clothes that he had been killed in still on his body, but that hardly mattered right now. "Who authorized this humiliation?"

"The king will have your head for this!" The leader who had commanded the firing squad bellowed at Tom, and got for his yelling an arrow embedded next to his head. Tom had only thrown it, but it had struck so hard, the wooden shaft shattered on impact.

"Keys." Tom didn't raise his voice, didn't need to. The fear that was in everyone but the commanders eyes enough to know that they were scared for their lives.

"I refuse." The commander uttered and drew his sword. None of his men followed suit, and they were thankful for that as Tom moved.

A flash and scraping of metal was all the sound he made, that and the wind moving incredibly fast. The armor was peeled from off his body before the commander could even defend himself. Tom gave him time enough to realize that he had been shucked from his armor before he dropped the confiscated dagger and set to. For Tom, he barely touched the commander, but the sound of a beating the likes of which no man should ever have to go through froze the guards in place.

Tom stood back, his anger vented. He breathed heavily at the exertion he had just done, but the look on the commander's face was worth it. The commander wobbled once on rubbery legs, slap marks the only indication that he had even been struck before his eyes rolled into his head and he collapsed mercifully into unconsciousness. Tom held out his hands to the nearest guard who jerked back fiercely from the outstretched hand.

"Keys." Tom asked, very slowly, very level. The guards turned as one and fled the room, the one who had the keys on him flinging them over his head as he fled for his life.

He picked the keys up off the ground and turned to the imprisoned woman. She looked a mess and stalked like a caged animal recently captured from the wild. Her clothes were slightly torn from the treatment she had taken, and her fingers on both hands looked to have a broken digit or two, but she looked as if she would chew iron and spit nails when she had the opportunity.

"You come in here and I'm going to make you pay, pale skin." Meris spat at him, determination in her eyes. Tom stopped for all of a few seconds as he gauged her, observing her for just a moment before he put the keys to the test and opened the door to the cell.

Tom stepped back from the open door, leaving it open and for Meris to have a way out she would feel would be safe. She came out, but slowly, making sure to keep Tom in sight and the guard in closer proximity. Kneeling down and rummaging through the refuse that was the guard's armor, she pulled forth her dagger and short sword that had been taken from her when she had been captured.

"Go home." Tom told her and turned away, moving slowly for the door out of the dungeons.

"I can't." Meris sounded both hurt and determined. "I will kill you first, and then I will kill myself."

Tom stopped and looked back at her. She was holding onto the door now, her physical strength finally beginning to give out. She looked resigned, but determined, something he felt he had in spades. He turned and walked back to her, her broken hand wrapping around her dagger as she tried to pull it free. He stopped and showed his open palms to her at either side, then getting close enough to her, he touched her hand.

The reaction was instantaneous. He felt his health transpose itself into her, mending her broken hurts and giving unto him her wounds. She gasped in shock whereas he groaned in pain, his knees wanting to buckle underneath him. Releasing his hold just after a moment, he limped away from her, his left leg feeling not only bruised, but shattered.

She looked at her hands, and pressed her fingers to her face in disbelief. Tom could feel the swelling beginning to puff his eyes closed. His headache doubled upon itself just as it was beginning to fade away. He pressed his back to the wall and slid down to a sitting position, whimpering as even his body began turning tender all over.

"Now…You can kill me." Tom spoke, and he felt as if his throat was raw. What had they done to her that could make him feel this way after taking her pain? She was able to stand and keep going whereas he wanted to just crumple and die from this pain he felt. It may even be a mercy to be killed.

She tilted his head back but he couldn't see her face, he did see the gleam of a dagger point held near to his eye. "Why did you do it?" She demanded of him. "Why trade your health for mine?"

His eyes watered, the pain getting to be a bit too much for him. "You did nothing to them." He spoke and wet his lips. "You didn't even try to save your life as they were about to kill you. No begging, no whining, not even a shudder. In a way, I envy you."

The sound of armored feet were coming from the door back into the castle, the running guards must of at least sent the alarm up and the royal infantry were on there way. Tom leaned his head back and took her hand from his hair gently, her fingers letting go of their own accord. "Do what you must, but don't get caught again. Hurry." He didn't sound scared of dying, maybe his brain wasn't totally regenerated yet.

There was movement as her dagger had gone away someplace. He barely heard anything, just the rustling of clothes and then she was gone. He truly did cry then, no mercy for the wicked, it would seem. He was still there, slumped against the wall and next to the unconscious guard by the time the castles elite arrived on the scene.

* * *

"Do you realize what you have done?" The King's voice rang in his ears, but the guards wouldn't release his arms. Probably if they did, he'd fall on his face and look foolish.

"I did the right thing." Tom spoke in the broken voice of the tortured.

"You let an assassin loose in My Castle!" The King was just pissed, royally as it was. The queen sat next to him, her icy gaze took in not only the priestesses as they stood attendance, but of the foreigners who had supposedly fallen from the sky.

"Your Majesty, If I could only explain…" Washu attempted to start speaking.

"You are one word away from explaining yourself onto the executioners block!" The King vented his ire at Washu, wanting more than to just yell at someone.

"Fuck You." Tom spoke and spat on the ground.

The King's face turned scarlet and a vein popped out on his forehead. For Tom's impertinence, he took a gauntlet upside the mouth with a bellowed "Blasphemer!" in his ear.

Tom spat blood onto the carpet and raised his head, already beaten a second time by the guards that had found him. "If you had any real balls between your legs, you'd walk the walk as well as talk the bullshit."

Jason covered his eyes and Washu hissed at Tom to shut up. Ryoko groaned loudly as her head was assaulted by a new wave of pain.

"Release Him This Instant And Give Him A Weapon!" The King had had enough. Nothing was saving this man from his fury. He pulled forth his family sword and came down from the dais, shucking his cloak as he went.

Tom was handed a dagger that could barely be called a butter knife. The glint of metal was all he saw as a slicing hack came at his neck, Tom stepping into the swing and under the arm. He punched as hard as he could and whimpered in pain as his fingers broke again on the armor that was hidden underneath The King's clothes. The second swing came low as The King spun intending to lop off his legs and bring the fight quickly over. He hopped back and felt his knees get nicked by the tip of the blade, his speed gone and his healing departed.

This was going to be a very short fight unless he could do something about The King's weapon. Tom was circled slowly as The King noticed holes all over the defense of this wounded man, but his honor so trashed that he would not allow anything short of outright humiliation stave his hand. Tom dropped his dagger, fumbling for it as it fell, and The King lunged aiming his sword point at the chest of his insulter. Tom stepped in, moving to the side to let the sword pass by his hip and The King realized to late what had happened.

Tom grappled and spun at the same time, pinning The King's head underneath his arm and locking his fingers into the waistline of his pants. The King's own momentum took them both over as Tom could not hold either of them up. They rolled on the ground, wrestling together as Tom kept The King's head locked into place. If Tom but squeezed and pulled back, The King's neck would snap.

"Guards! Remove Him!" Guards rushed in to save their Liege, Lans being the one to take custody of the broken man. He was lashed to a lance and bludgeoned again with a spear haft that made his head swoon and stars fill his vision.

Jason got to his feet roughly and made his way toward Tom, but Tom forestalled him with a wave of his hand. Washu took his arm and pulled him back down next to her. The King felt his neck slowly, breathing hard from the near death he had about experienced. Miz came forward wanting to place her healing arts into either Tom or The King, but he held his hand up and she obeyed.

"I have made my decision regarding your man." He looked over at Washu and motioned for his guards to hold up Tom. "You will be lashed in Traitor's Square for 7 days and 7 nights. Each day at noon, you will be whipped unto an inch of your life." Jason barked an oath at this, but Washu hushed him. "Should you survive for those days, you will be released and set on guard duty at the front gates. Desertion of your post will result in the death of your traveling companions."

Tom stood straighter and strained weakly against his captors. "Your punishment begins tomorrow. Until then, you will not eat of the people's food, nor drink of the people's water till your time is served." The King looked at Miz before he added. "You shall not be healed by the people's aid either. Any that defies this edict is hereby condemned to death!" He let the words hang in the air as he looked around The Royal Chambers. "Your punishment begins immediately! Guards! Take him away!"

"This is outrageous!" Afera stepped forward even as Jason came to his feet. "I will not follow the laws of a Tyrant!" He yelled and was summarily cut off.

"SILENCE!" The King bellowed. The guards marched Tom out without a second look. "I am King of this land and as long as my house rules, My Law is Absolute!" The King looked at both the priestesses and the travelers from the stars. "Should you think that my rule is unfair, you are banished forthwith. Now then, unless you wish to be strung up next to him, you are dismissed."

There were glares aplenty as both priestesses and travelers were shown the door. "That's a heavy punishment to be getting." Miz looked unruffled, though she bit down on her lower lip.

"No more than he deserves." Shaela spoke her mind once again and received incredulous looks from everyone. "If he was smart, he'd of just stayed quiet, course this is a Man we're talking about here."

Jason's hand clenched hard enough to hear cartilage popping in his knuckles. "I'd smack the taste out of your mouth right now if it meant I'd not get yelled at by Tom." He glared hate down at Shaela, daring her to say something smart.

"Be that as it may," Washu spoke each word with a snap, getting everyone's attention, "I intend to be there each day to make sure he doesn't die, King or no King." She began walking after the procession that was leaving the castle.

Ryoko hovered wobbly, still feeling the effects of the alcohol. "I thought you said he couldn't die." She asked even as everyone began following her, all for their own reasons.

"You saw what he looked like." Washu shook her head and brought up a schematic of Tom's body. It began to tell in detail every problem on his body from broken bones to welts and bruises. "His body wasn't and is still not healing, plus he's about to be pressed to his physical limits. His body isn't healing at all."

"It's just like when he healed Shaela." Afera spoke and Washu turned to her, eyeing her seriously. "He was able to save Shaela's life by giving her healthy skin in replace for his own. He passed out afterwards and didn't wake up till he escaped."

"The day we showed up." Washu ran some numbers in her head.

"True, but he was out for three days before that." Miz said and Afera nodded, her own memory matching Miz's.

"Which means he still may be able to die before his healing kicks in." Washu turned and ran after the guards, praying to whoever would listen for him to survive.

* * *

The guards had brought a considerable procession with them by the time they had reached Traitor's Square. The noonday sales were in full swing by the time they marched Tom out to the only post in the center of the square and posted a perimeter. It wasn't enough though that he was to be publicly displayed though, humiliation was in order.

"Hear ye, Hear ye," The leader of the guards shouted for everyone's attention, "Let it be known throughout the kingdom, that this man here did willingly conspire with the enemy in their escape, and to attempt the assassination of the our Liege and Lord, King Pandross Venus." Everyone came to a stop at these words and even a few threw aged foods at Tom. "As punishment for these crimes, the mercy of our Liege has allowed him to fight for us, but only after his punishment of public lashing for 7 days!"

The crowds cheered at this and the guard waved for silence. "It is to also be known that no man, woman, or child is to heal, feed, or water this usurper of The Law until his time has been served!" The guard removed a bullwhip from his waist and unraveled it with a flourish. "Thus is the mercy of His Majesty, Our King!" and with that, the punishment began.

Tom thankfully, could feel nothing. His consciousness was fading in and out of a cacophony of pain and suffering that only his mind could not register. His mind went someplace near the dark thing, he felt it there and it said nothing to him, no mocking jibe nor quiet taunt. It was worse than the incessant talking, and it was going to drive him mad. There was no hope for him anymore, no pain, and only endless torture welcomed him. Now he truly envied the dead.

* * *

It was mercifully short and over before it truly began. Tom's life signs had faded too near life threatening for her tastes, and they didn't stabilize worth a damn. Jason had nearly gotten them all killed when he rushed to his friend's aid, yet Ryoko was able to talk him away for his own good, and maybe their own. Still, Washu wanted to do the same thing and she stayed no longer than what she had to. An assurance from the water priestess that he still lived was all the guards were concerned about as they left him to hang and to fend for himself as they returned back to their duties at the castle. Afera stayed and dared anyone to throw anything at the wounded man that hung there, her own way of showing defiance at the edict, but she made no attempt to remove him from the post that he was held up from.

Miz left as well, preferring to be away from the grizzly scene she was to be a party to for the next 6 days. Shaela was the only one who didn't say one thing or another when it was finally over as she merely watched while Afera took a spot nearby to Tom and glared at anyone that came too close. There wasn't much of an emotion in her face, and when she turned to leave, it was with a hurried step. Washu went back to her own quarters, leaving her computer on as she typed up a report on what might be going through his head at this point. Delirium must have set in for sure, dementia maybe, maybe even a complete psychological breakdown? And why hadn't The Armor tried to save him, was something in his healing preventing The Armor from manifesting?

She knew she shouldn't be doing this, reducing him down to a number on a screen. It was a self defense mechanism for her to cope, just that and nothing more. She tried very hard not to break down and cry.

* * *

She was there once more, in the trees with the stone seats. She was reading a book quietly, the wind ruffling her hair gently as she hummed to herself. It was the most beautiful thing he had heard in a long time and he wanted nothing more than to sink into that tune and wash away. He took one step and hesitated for just an instant.

Her head came up and she looked around, allowing him to hide behind the tree totally from her. She looked for a bit longer, the sense that someone was near enough to distract her humming, but not enough for her not to resume where she left off. He stared off into the trees away from her, hiding himself for a few breaths before he returned back to the darkness. His mind brought him back here so often now, a place he considered close enough for home.

He had even figured a way to mask the connection, not cutting her off but blanketing it with a fake feeling. He didn't want her to know what was happening to him anymore than he wanted to hurt her. Willing himself to wake, he came to in the darkness of night. The sun had gone down and his skin was thankful for it, being beaten and sunburned didn't make for good combinations.

Afera had left some time ago, the scent of her against the wood barely lingered anymore. He didn't care, not about her or for his own survival. He hoped that his weakness hadn't done anything that would have made things worse. He glanced up at the dark castle, toward the guard posts and the only light in the sea of darkness. Visions crossed his sight as his stomach gurgled protest, he was beginning to become hungry, and that was bad for him.

"Congratulations on making through your first day." Meris came out of the shadows by a nearby house, she had stitched her clothes back together since he had last seen her and she moved with the swagger of good health and prosperity. "I would have thought you'd scream your head off when they laid into you with that whip." She brushed her hands over the leather strap that had been placed on a bracket on the post.

"I was not cognitive through most of it." Tom's voice had totally gone out now, the heat baking away the water left in him.

Meris eyed him critically as she walked around him. His body was in a shambles, lash marks deep enough to leave cuts in his flesh, weeping wounds and yellow fluid seeping down his back with his blood. It was amazing to her that he could still talk, his legs bent weakly under him, barely holding him up from the torture of the ropes and their binding embrace. She came full circle of him and looked into his eyes, seeing for the first time how badly his mind was taking the abuse his body was going through.

She reached to her belt again and brought the dagger to his throat, watching his eyes for any change. He flinched once as the cool blade made contact with his skin, then balanced delicately on its edge, trying to absorb the feel of chill into him. He looked sullenly forward, not at her or anything else, like he wasn't seeing anything anymore.

"I could end you misery right now for you." She wanted this, to make him beg. Her humiliation demanded it. "Beg me to kill you and I will give you peace."

Tom's eyes focused weakly and saw her for the first time, his eyes giving away an inner battle in him. The decision was made as he pulled slowly away from her blade, the rope creaking weakly as he pulled away. "I cannot die today. I must not." He spoke with a bit firmer of a voice, if just as parched as it was before.

Meris stepped back from him and put her dagger away, looking greatly angered at her pleasure being taken away. "So you choose to fight." She growled softly, her eyes glinting malice.

"I don't have a choice about fighting." Tom shook his head from side to side then looked hard at Meris. "My fate was already decided for me."

"Halt!" A guard had rounded a corner from the castle gates and was making his way toward her. Meris threw a simple illusion on the man's mind and faded from his sight as she stepped away from Tom. He came to a stop in front of Tom, looking down the thoroughfare and back toward the castle, sure he saw someone out here with the prisoner.

"Hey." Tom brought the guy's attention back to himself. Dry spitting toward the guard, Tom said, "If you got time to gawk, you got time to pay. I'm not out here for nothing, you know."

"Silence!" The guard back handed him and with the blow, took the last of Tom's strength with it. One more check of the area satisfied the guard as, with a kick to Tom's stomach, he marched down through the empty stalls and to his patrols.

Her illusion melted away as she became visible in the moonlight. Tom groaned weakly, now only held up by the rope that was tied off to the stake at the top of the pole. Her opinion of him had gone up a notch, openly defying his captors with no regard for his own health. Something of him confused her, however. He had spoke to her about his fate being decided, as if he knew when and how his own death would be. She sat down on a barrel across the square from him and watched for the rest of the night, as she weighed and measured her prey once more.

* * *

He was being held by someone. He sensed it before he really knew what was going on. He felt so at peace that at first he thought it was wrong, something had happened to him that he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He struggled free from those arms and turned, prepared to lash at anything except who he saw.

Ayeka had found him again. She looked a bit out of sorts from his recent departure from her arms, but she was quick to recover her composure. "I came to talk to you again." She spoke, and then blushed slightly.

Tom wondered if she was thinking about how she had held him and then what she had said. Weird way of talking, but cultures were not just one way. "I'm sorry," Tom bowed slightly to her, amazed that his body didn't hurt here as it did in the waking world, "I was unprepared and unsure of where I was at. I guess I passed out sometime ago."

Ayeka wondered what he meant by that, but didn't press. "I looked for you yesterday, but you were somewhere else. Maybe awake." She felt the connection between her and him suppress to almost nothingness. "Please don't do that."

Tom had hidden the connection between her and him without thought, habit. He released the shroud over the line and sat down in the dark, taking stock of his control in the last few days. "I'm sorry, I do that by habit, I suppose." Tom thought how she might feel about what he had done. "I didn't mean to offend, Ma'am."

Ayeka giggled, a hand held before her mouth as his kindness was too much. "Please, call me by my name. I am Ayeka Jurai." She bowed to him elegantly, practiced and precise.

"My name is Tom, Tom Steele." Tom again bowed, feeling ungainly and just embarrassed.

"So, then, Tom," Ayeka smiled a knowing smile as she sat as well, making Tom a bit more uncomfortable in her presence, "was it something important that you kept a lady waiting?"

She was teasing him, Tom knew this. He knew, and yet he was still acting like he was the bad guy here. "I…I'm sorry, Ms. Ayeka. I didn't know we had a date."

Ayeka looked confused for a moment, and then Tom felt like his brain was being rifled through in quick order. Ayeka smiled once the feeling in his head stopped. "I guess I really can't call it a date since we had made no prior commitments, but it would have been nice to see you again."

Tom kept his face placid while his brain worked on what had just happened. He got the feeling that Ayeka had gone into his head for the definition to 'date' and that the feeling of searching had been her he had felt. Tom shivered involuntarily at the prospect and locked his inner mind tighter.

Ayeka must have felt it for her face turned concerned as she tilted her head. "Did I do something wrong?" She asked, not sure if she had crossed some personal line.

"It would be far easier to read minds and know how a person felt, but some people feel that by doing such, they cease to be individual." Tom was surprised he had thought something like that up. Maybe he hadn't and it had come from Ayeka involuntarily, he wasn't sure.

"I know how that is." Ayeka said as a knowing smile spread on her face. "My sister can't seem to know enough, and she wants to know all the things I've done. Mostly those of being with of boys." Ayeka blushed profusely as she realized what she had just said. "Please forgive me, I didn't mean to imply that I was some type of malankii, It's just my sister is just so rude sometimes."

"Malankii?" Tom asked, the word not sounding right from his own lips. Ayeka gestured to her left and a semblance of a woman appeared in a degrading sort of clothing, a little too much make up and her hair set in a way that was supposed to be attractive, but obviously wasn't. "A floozy." Tom spoke as he nodded.

"A what?" It was Ayeka's turn to look confused. Tom thought on how to explain and instead opened his mind slightly to Ayeka for the translation. With a brief hesitation, Ayeka's face turned beet red and she nodded curtly. "Yes, that is exactly what my sister thinks I am." Her voice had taken on an edge of impatience as she looked down right offended by the thought.

"People have their role models, and at certain ages, they tend to think of things that are usually taboo by their people." With each feel of confusion, Tom let loose a piece of explanation, trying his best to not let slip his entire self.

"I guess that is true," Ayeka sighed greatly as she remembered her own crushes, "I was like that at one time or another, but I quickly grew out of it."

"Plus, I assume, you never had an older sister." Tom said as he held a finger up before him, like he was pointing out the obvious.

"Now it sounds like your defending my sister." Ayeka looked a bit put off by this line of talk and Tom raised his hands before him.

"It's not that I'm defending her, I'm just showing both cons and pros." The thought Tom sent was of a coin being flipped through the air.

As if speaking of her was a summons, the little girl that had been with Ayeka that first day appeared next to her sister. She took one look at Tom and dismissed him with a sniff that rankled him a bit.

"Sister, you said you'd practice with me today." She tugged at Ayeka's arm, trying to move her into acquiesce.

The scene changed around all three of them that Tom was a bit out of balance to be on the ground. Ayeka was sitting on the stone bench and somehow the trees had come into existence without him thinking it. He looked at Ayeka with a confused look, and she winked back at him.

"All right, Sasami. I said we would and we shall." Ayeka stood up and her clothing had changed to the gi he had seen on her before. The younger girl cheered once and switched her clothes just as fast, hopping away from her sister before she attacked prematurely.

Tom stood and moved out of the way quickly even as they charged each other, hands and feet either attacking or parrying each other as they moved in that fighting style that Tom had watched Ayeka do before. They came at each other and broke apart with no obvious sign that either was either taking too bad a beating, or that there was going to be an obvious victor. Their skill was nearly the same level as each other and Tom wondered if he would have any chance against them if he were to fight.

As they broke apart once more, the younger girl motioned with her left hand and pointed her fingers forward. From the tips came little light daggers that launched with a speed that was incredible, nearly taking Ayeka surprise. She rolled underneath them toward her sister and pointed her own hands toward her opponent. The same lights launched from her hands, but these moved as if they were alive, not simply forward but everywhere. There was no chance of escape as they converged from every angle and struck with a popping sound like little fireworks over the younger girl.

"Very good, Sasami." Ayeka said as her clothes changed from her gi to that of the robes she had previously been wearing. "You nearly had me that time."

"How did you do that, with the lights?" Tom asked as he stepped forward, his curiosity peaked.

Both the girls looked at each other then giggled at a private joke. The younger one explained. "It's something that our family can do, called 'The Armor of Light.' Stories have it that both The Armors of Light and Darkness are immortal and can never die. Our Armor allows us to do such attacks by our will."

"You guys possess Armor?" Tom had locked off his mind now, but was still trying to get information as he could.

"Our job is to find The Armor of Darkness and stop it, by whatever means necessary." Ayeka placed her hand to her heart and looked serene, as if ordained by God. "We are saviors for the universe."

Tom wanted to switch off The Armor of Darkness quickly. "So, by what limitations is your Armor constrained to?"

"Well, it is theorized that our Armor can do anything as long as we can believe it to happen." The younger nodded and created the wand in her hand. "The stronger we believe something, the better the chances of it happening."

Tom had heard enough, his own inner turmoil from earlier starting to come back on him even as he stood here and talked to these ladies. "Ayeka." Tom had come to a decision. He didn't like what he was about to do, but felt this was extremely necessary.

Ayeka must have sensed this, for she turned serious and listened intently to what he was about to say next. "Ayeka, I want you to remove this connection in my head." He tried not to make this sound harsh, but it was just being out and out rude and he knew it. "I don't think that you and I should be talking anymore."

Ayeka was hurt by this, she didn't look it but Tom could feel it. Sasami didn't make a comment about how barbaric he was being but neither Tom nor Ayeka were listening to her. Ayeka was asking Tom across the link they had why he wanted to do something like that, and Tom was not answering her back. He had closed off the other side of his connection to her and was slowly beginning to squeeze all connection closed on his side by blocking her totally out.

With a simple nod, Ayeka unraveled the psychic rapport she had established in his mind. She felt for a brief instant intense pain as Tom's face winced and his form flickered. Something was happening to him and she tried to tie off the rapport before he disappeared again. It would be extremely difficult to find him again if he were to disappear before she could.

He must have felt what she was trying to do for he disappeared quickly, only a sensation of him coming now, even from his awakened mind. She winced again as something hurt him, something very painful. Sasami supported Ayeka as her knees went weak with just the realization of what he was coming from him. Sasami only knew that her sister was feeling something that wasn't hers and it wasn't pleasant.

"Is that why he tried to be alone?" Ayeka thought in her mind as another snatch of pain floated to her. She sat down with aid from her sister gently, feeling an ache that wasn't hers seep in all over. Very quietly, and for no reason that could be explained, she cried.

* * *

Dear God, another chapter posted. I keep this up, I might have the entire thing finished in a month. Too bad I already had it all typed out. (I am lazy, if you haven't guessed)

All kidding aside, The juridians are speeding their way to Krinas and toward the Armor of Darkness to destroy it once again. Why is it that when the epic bad guys come out, they die only to come back again? Is it like a punishment for them? Do their bad guy mommy's send them to a time out then back out to play when their punishment is over? Yeesh...


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Props today go to MegaAuthor. The recruiting of the masses goes as planned, yes, my precious. o.o**

**I post this chapter as a slow down for the moment. With so many things moving all around them at once, it's nice to step back and take advantage of the rest that comes from being in safe company. Too bad nothing is safe for Tom right about now...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the right to use anything associated with El Hazard or Tenchi series animation, mangas, and anything else I would like to own. I only own Tom, Jason, Meris, and the Armor of Darkness

* * *

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**Chapter 10**

**Faith and Disappointment**

Jason wondered if Jesus ever begged for death on the cross. For three days, Tom had been tortured in public, with 'Huzzah!' and 'Hooray!' with every whip lash he received. Jason counted every day, and every day the lashing lasted just a few more than before. Lans had taken over as punisher after the first day, but after the second, he was replaced by the guard that Tom had nearly killed to release the Shadowen woman. The guard vented his indignation every day on Tom just a bit more, trying to make him scream, beg, anything to break him.

Tom gave the people nothing in return for the 'gifts' they heaped upon him. He was covered in street dirt and refuse that had been thrown at him. His wounds had crusted shut, still no sign that his healing ability had decided to activate again. His skin was burnt red everyday and blisters were even beginning to form from overexposure. Hell, even the elements were against him as it hadn't rained the entire time.

The lashing had started at 10 on the first day, and they were just passing 30 this time with no sign that they were going to stop. Jason's hands clenched and unclenched, he wanted to do something so badly that his whole body ached with need. He didn't give a damn about these people anymore, let them go to hell for all he was concerned. He went to move forward, just like every other day he had wanted to free his friend and was once more restrained by Washu with a shake of her head.

Jason tried looking everywhere else but at Tom, Afera still stood so close to the post that she was in danger of catching an errant flick. Miz stood behind the guard and was crying again, both with frustration and with disgust. The princess was in attendance today as she had been yesterday, flinching with every whipping whoosh the leather strap made as it flew through the air. Lans held her head to his chest, keeping her eyes from seeing this perverse justice being given.

Shaela was nowhere to be seen, she had since decided not to watch this as it was only right that he receive his punishment. Ryoko was flying scout out along the outer walls of the town for any invaders, which had added to his frustration. Nothing in the last few days had deterred the exacting of Tom's punishment, and no attacks had made the guards painfully punctual everyday.

On the 40th whiplash, the guard rewound the strap and sneered at Tom's back. He returned the leather to the post and with a swift command, took possession of the brigade that had surrounded Tom and marched back off to the castle. The people were not so merciful, as they threw old and disgusting pieces of food at Tom, coating him in another layer of filth. He barely even moved as each piece hit him from every side. Afera summoned down a wind funnel around Tom, bringing a minor barrier to his defense once his punishment was exacted. She walked in close and checked Tom's pulse and eyes, then opened his mouth and looked over at Miz.

Nodding only once, Miz headed back to the castle, trying to keep from running away by sheer will. Afera sat down once more in the spot she normally kept all through the day, only leaving once the sun went down. She maintained the small barrier as well as she could, but the people had gotten wise to her wind trickery and had found ways to fix their refuse with heavier objects. Some made it through but no farther than to the foot of the post where Afera sat, some made it to Tom and knocked him reeling. Afera retaliated by sending an icy blast of wind back at them.

Jason and Washu turned from Tom and headed back up toward the castle, Rune and Lans well ahead of them looking about as well as Jason felt. "I'm going to kill somebody soon if they don't relent, Washu." Jason ground his teeth and his words with as much vehemence as he felt.

"You know what the price will be if you do." Washu had told him this on the first night and Jason rounded on her.

"Let the Bugrom and the shadow tribe have these people, for all I care! They can't do this to him!"

"Yes, they can and they will because if they fall, there won't be anybody left to stop them!" Washu had been kept up to date of the information coming into the city. Many of the other towns had fallen to a vast army sweeping down upon them, and it would be here soon.

Jason clenched his fists till they hurt. Amazing as that was, he could feel his body hurting under his own exertion. "Then what the hell must I do?" Jason had to do something soon, or he was going to break himself.

"Pray the Bugrom get here, and pray it's soon." Washu said to him, although she knew what kind of price that was going to be.

* * *

"Father's wrong about this." Rune kept her voice low as dissension in the royal family was not a good way to keep the moral of the people up. 

"It may well be so, Your Majesty, but your father's word is law." Lans could not disagree with His King, but neither could he agree. "There is nothing that even you can do about that."

Rune had been thinking on this for days now, and only the recent teachings of the head librarian had recently given thought to something that she may be able to do. It would take some time, and some sacrifice of sleep, but there could yet be a way. She just hoped that the Bugrom held off for a few more days.

* * *

Shaela had been sitting in this dive of a tavern for hours now, the local drink wasn't much, barely tolerable even under the best of circumstances. She hadn't come for the drink, it was the view that she had wanted. Even now with the plaza clearing, she could see clearly out into Traitor's Square through the rabble of city folk as they went back to their lives. There hadn't been any children today, something that was different from the previous days. Maybe they had lost interest, but it didn't seem like the others had. 

The local drunks here were all making or collecting bets from each other as to how much longer he'd go before he finally died. Some were even making bets on whether he would scream or just be stark raving loony by the end of his punishment. She was about to pay for her drink when a stray bet crossed her ear.

"Twenty Crowns bets ya he starves ta death before they finish 'em off." One old drunk reeled on his barstool with a few people snorting laughter at him whereas the others had either placed for or against.

Out in the deserts of Aranju, two of the most common ways of dying were thirst and starvation. Just looking at him was obvious he had both deep set into him by now. She remembered when she grew up in Val Astanri, last outpost of the known human populace She hunted out in the desert more times than she was ever at home. She was blessed with that freedom, but even more so that the hunter's guild showed her how to survive out there in the desert.

She decided that she needed to do a little hunting then and there. Who knows, she may even be able to do something legal and illegal at both the same time.

* * *

Night had set its teeth in once more, the chill of darkness bringing a cold sweat to Tom's body. He wasn't just delusional at this point, he was dying. Meris sat and watched him as she had done for the last few days now, watching the determination that was this man slowly gutter out. She fingered the hilt at her waist, wondering if it would be a mercy to just kill him and be gone. She was getting sentimental in her young age, something that would be the death of her. 

She liked watching him fight for life, there was something exhilarating in it. She hadn't seen anyone struggle for something so futile since she had been initiated into Mor-Deth. How ironic that to struggle into death's embrace, you became death in turn. The appearance of a skulker wasn't surprising to her, she had dispatched two already that had tried to come and kill him already. No one had been wise enough to try a third time till now, maybe she would have a little sport with this one before dispatching it.

She moved off the barrel silently, moving quietly on the pads of her feet as she circled behind the person who tried to hide. They obviously didn't want to be seen or else they would have paraded around like the guards that came to make their own sport of Tom. She came up on them, weaving a veil of invisibility around herself as she came closer, pulling her dagger free and preparing to lunge at the person. A flame appeared on the tip of one finger illuminating the fire priestess seconds before Meris could strike and bringing her to a halt before she was undone.

The flame was small, too small to be seen by the castle, but hopefully she wouldn't need it for very long. Moving the flame so that it was close to her body, she moved as quiet as she dared to Tom and pulled something from her belt. Meris followed to see what this thing was and saw that she held a six legged garnak. She had heard that the people of the sunny sands her people called Naxthra Frolsh had many of these creatures, and that they were as dangerous as they were plentiful.

This one was put on a stick and looked to have been gutted and cooked. The fire priestess took a small piece of it and fed it to Tom's mouth, placing it in with a hastily retrieved finger. Tom's mouth moved mechanically, the first thing other than his tongue he'd had to chew in days. He didn't even try to swallow as drool began to come from his mouth.

Shaela placed a second small piece into his mouth and held his jaw up this time, a sound of disgust coming from her throat as soon as she touched his skin. His eyes watered, leaking crud down his face as his awareness slipped in and out, but knowing that he was being fed something. His eyes focused only briefly on Shaela's face, but no comprehension met them as his eyes lost focus once more and he passed out.

"No, you can't sleep, not yet." Shaela grabbed his shoulder and shook it. "You haven't had enough yet." She shook him harder, but he would not respond to her no matter how hard she tried.

Feet were coming, armored feet. Shaela's head came up and she looked back at the castle. The slow tromp of metal feet sounded down the street, the patrols coming back on their rounds. Shaela couldn't wait anymore, pocketing the cooked garnak, she ran back the way she came into a dark alleyway. The guards past silently onward, not bothering with Tom tonight, knowing that his pain was just about to start again. Meris didn't even bother to move from where she stood as they walked past her.

She looked from the guards back to the alleyway that the fire priestess had disappeared down. She risked going to death for him, something she herself would have just watched as he died. Her decision taken from her, she opened a small flask of water and took a small mouthful. Tilting his head back, she kissed his lips and transferred the water from her mouth to his, stroking his throat even as she kissed. He swallowed once and she had to break the kiss, a dry cough coming up from out of him that wracked his body.

She took one more mouthful of water from her flask and forced him to kiss her once more, and was surprised when he kissed back on her lips. He drank the water she fed him greedily and was surprised when his own tongue moved to her mouth. She stepped back from him, the back of her hand to her face as he spoke.

"Mor-Deth, Fra hagath pron moresh. Tral la Nir. Jortuh!" He uttered as his eyes unfocused, or seeing something only he could see. He weakly leaned back against the post before his eyes closed with a groan and he passed out once more.

Mor-Deth, you must escape from here. He's my enemy. Run Away! The second time he had spoken her language and still no answer for how he could know it. One day she would find out how he knew how to speak the language of shadows, but she would have to keep him alive till then.

* * *

Tom could feel her out there, somewhere both far and near in this place of dreams. She felt for him with a patience that he envied and despised at the same time. His patience had worn thin and all pretenses that it didn't hurt weren't working anymore. He hated himself for his weakness, but more for the fact that he couldn't do anything about his current predicament without causing someone else to suffer. 

"You like her, don't you?" The thing had taken his body again, or at least a semblance of it. It sat smugly dressed as flamboyant as a 16th century noble. The thing had spoken in his head so that he could feel more the thief in the night.

"She is not for me." Tom spoke softly; He could feel that pull of darkness somewhere in his mind, the cold that represented that presence.

"You are so sure of yourself, finite creature." The sound of wind moving around was unusual, but nothing that would distract him. "As if you had control of your own destiny. You are no more in control of yourself than any beast."

"Shut up." Tom's voice was harsh and bitter. He had wanted to vent on something for days now, and the armor was becoming the perfect target.

The armor obliged, and it was the last thing he wanted. His nerves had been on end for days, being as fried as his body had felt. He desperately needed nourishment and healing, his body so ragged that he didn't think he would last much longer. Strangely, it was a cold, comforting thought that he was sure was something he wanted.

He thought for a moment about all the other times when he was younger. As a child he had wanted so much and believed in so much as well. Now, years later, all those wants were burned out of him and his beliefs were non existent. It was a bitter pill, but one he digested slowly as he observed everything around him. The armor shifted softly in the back of his mind like it was physically there, readjusting itself to encompass this new aspect of him.

Weighing his options between dreams and the real world, he decided for cognitive and awoke to midday. The sun had risen some time ago, the vendors into their sales now as they tried to unload all their wares before close later that night. It was still a ways off before his torture once more and he wasn't so much dreading it, but wishing it would hurry and end. Afera looked like she hadn't been sleeping much lately, her head was nestled against the post and her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep.

Tom felt sorry for making her go through this, her health more important than his own. He moved with a slight hitch as he placed himself between her and the sunlight that was still at Tom's back. Standing as easy as he could without placing too much strain on his already weak reserves, he kept his vigil over her.

It went on like this for about an hour before the tavern let loose its first drunks of society. "Out with ya lot, and don't return till you've got the money." The tavern keeper threw out two guards who were too drunk to remember they were guards

"We protect this here town from those light cursed creatures and this is the thanks we get?" The first guard yelled back into the tavern with an outraged howl that sounded none to steady. Grabbing hold of his partner, the second guard turned him around and pointed at the wind priestess.

She had shifted slightly, the sound disturbing her sleep only a little as she shifted positions where she sat. The guards, being as drunk as they were, thought that the wind priestess was being coy with them by showing off her considerable body to them. Tom's hackles rose with every stumbling step that brought them closer to him till the guards stood before him and Afera.

"This is a right pretty lass, she is." The second guard leered down at the sleeping priestess, a soft groan coming from her lips and Tom growled menacingly at them.

They ignored him as the guards continued talking to each other. "I hear that since she came to the castle, she hasn't had a good nights rest." The first guard licked his lips and his hands twitched slightly. "Maybe she needs something to give her a good nights rest."

Shaela came bursting out of the tavern, a yell of protest coming from behind her as she reached into her satchel for her gauntlet. Tom didn't give her a chance to don it as his shadow stretched underneath the guards. The shadow reached up on either side of each man and engulfed them in two giant mouths of darkness that pulled each of them down into the ground as fast as the shadow had sprung up around them. The shadow disappeared back down into the ground as fast as it had sprung up, swallowing whole the two men that had previously been there.

Only one or two people other than the fire priestess had saw what had really happened to the guards and believed that it had been some optical illusion, maybe even a shadowen trick that had made those guards disappear. No one would believe that the shadowen had penetrated so deep into town, however it did bring stares and spits toward Tom once more. Shaela however came up short where she was at, staring in disbelief at where the men had been at.

Tom began reeling where he stood, wanting to become sick with nausea and vertigo. He exhaled from his mouth and tasted alcohol on his breath, his hunger satiated by some unknown source. Shaela called over the crowd to Afera who was finally beginning to wake up, not wanting to come any further that what she was.

The city guards marched their procession toward Tom once more, every day as they would normally. They awoke the wind priestess from where she slept and moved her back to the line of guards blocking the post from any who would attempt to heal or help the man. Once again, the charges were read to the people, who now occasionally glanced. Washu and Jason were in attendance, watching from a good vantage point, Miz joining Shaela and Afera as they talked of something that Tom couldn't hear over the headache building behind his eyes.

Tom was wondering as to what the yelling was all about till he was knocked into a world of pain that did not end for some time.

* * *

He had been drunk, that was obvious from the way he hung his head and dry heaved. How he had gotten hold of alcohol would remain a mystery for another day, for now, he must be really dehydrated. She walked over to him with a veil of shadow around herself, unafraid of being seen by anyone other than who she wanted to be seen by. 

He looked up at her from where he hung, his eyes seeming to pin her where she stood even though she knew he couldn't see her. She looked into his haggard face noticing that he looked more aware, more responsive than he had been yesterday. Something must have happened while she had been asleep, something that she would need to find out about.

"I can hear you out there." Even his voice sounded better, as if he had drenched his thirst in some unknown river. "Make your peace with me and be gone." He was more wearied by this endless procession of torture than anything else, being placed on show like some exhibition piece in a museum.

She modified her veil, allowing only him to see her as she moved slowly forward. "I see that you are doing much better now." She placed a hand to her dagger, drawing his eyes to her weapon. "Would you like me to kill you now?"

Tom shifted slightly, moving off one leg and on to the other. "I will thankfully decline your kind offer." He looked back up at her face and rubbed his cheek against the wood. Since his time being strapped to the post, he had grown a shading of stubble on his face.

She pulled her canteen free from her hip and was pulling the corking free from it when the sound of armored boots started coming down the road behind her again. The patrols had past by maybe 5 minutes ago, they were either coming back earlier than usual or this was something else all together. Meris replaced the stopper in the canteen and moved into the shadows. Sometimes, added precaution was necessary when things were going very wrong.

The feet were armored and the men coming down the street were dressed in guardsman's armor, but any similarity to the guard ended at that. Two shadow tribesmen marched down the road wearing the palace armor, their gait the slow, crisp cadence of guards on patrol. They approached Tom at a leisurely march grinning all the while, yet neither had moved nor said a word. The rasp of metal on leather brought Tom's eyes up as the guards came marching onward, their intent painfully clear.

"You're a hard one to kill off, do you know that?" The left shadowen spoke softly, barely above a whisper as they slowed and finally stopped before Tom.

"Many scouts died at your hand, pale skin." The right shadowen looked emotionless as he stood there, yet his blade shook ever so slightly with an urge to kill.

The first shadowen placed his hand on the second's shoulder. "Your Mor-Deth will be able to rest easier once her killer joins her."

"And where was this Mor-Deth that you say I killed?" Tom was trying to stall for time, but he was curious as well as to why the right one wanted him dead.

"She was a part of the hunting group sent out for that traitorous bitch, Meris of clan Vah Tosh." Meris rankled slightly at being referred as shalantha, but she could understand what the Tok-Ran was going through. "Not that it's any of your concern since you will be joined by her soon enough, but it will be my great pleasure to eviscerate you and her, leaving your bowels to rot in the sun."

Meris was moving before the first shadowen could approach Tom. Letting her illusion slip, she lunged overtop a short sword swing as she passed the rear guard. He was a trained warrior and knew how to handle a blade, but compared to a Mor-Deth's skill, he was already dead. She had slashed as she passed him in the air, pulling her dagger free from her waist and cutting through the jugular and carotid in the man's throat. He gurgled on blood and air as he tried to stymie the fatal slice, falling to his knees and finally to his face.

The Tok-Ran turned at the sound and attacked Meris as she rolled to her feet. Fighting with all the lethal skill that she had been raised to, she parried and batted at him, bludgeoning him backwards as nips and cuts from her blade made him shy away from her. Tom's legs wrapped around his neck from behind and with a twist, the sound of a dislocated neck popped in the silent night. The body dropped in death instantly, making Tom stretch outward as he dislodged his feet from the dead body.

"An interesting move." Meris rolled the body off of Tom's ankle, allowing him to put himself right again. "I would have thought that you would try to save him as well." She stared down at the face that looked utterly surprised.

"He was lost the moment he wanted vengeance." Tom spoke aloud but in his mind he was berating himself for saying something so absolutely corny. "Besides, he was trying to fight you, the person I put both body and mind on the line for. I'm not about to let my investment go to waste."

"Your…'investment', you say?" She didn't like being called something she didn't understand, least of all being referred as someone's anything. She laid her dagger point to his heart, just under his ribs and pressed softly. "I am not your anything, pale skin. I will never be your anything." She hissed hatred at him laced with menace.

"Then do your job, Mor-Deth." Tom spat back at her, his emotional limits hit, and a willing target for him to vent on had finally arrived. She pressed harder, pinking him as a little trickle of blood ran down the blade of her dagger.

He didn't wince, didn't look scared. If anything, he looked like he was going to cry from sheer joy. She cut a shallow line two inches long downward, then paralleled it with another the same length. With a final groove cut to intersect the lines from left to right going in a shallow dive, she removed her dagger and placed it away.

"You are mine now, fool." She smiled, actually smiled, as she leaned in and licked at the blood she had drawn. "I have tasted your blood and taken it as my own. You are now my Tok-Ran, my sheath."

"What the hell?" Tom thought as he looked down at this woman in a confused manner. The sound of boots coming from the castle turned Meris around and brought Tom's eyes up as both of them looked back toward the castle.

"We will talk of this more at a later date." Meris faded away to nothingness and the sound of her feet were masked as she disappeared God knows where.

"Great," Tom thought to himself as the alarm was raised, "Now what have I gotten myself into?"

* * *

"You're sure they were shadowen?" Lans questioned for The King as the night watch recounted what it had found near Tom's post. 

"I am positive, My Lord." The guard was knelt and eyes downcast to the floor in respect of His King. "Both men had their weapons out as if they were going to kill the law breaker, only one was close enough to actually strike him. The strange thing is that only one of them was killed with a sword or bladed weapon. The other's neck had been broken."

Lans and The King looked at each other. Once the look had been exchanged between the two of them, Lans and The King both returned to looking down at the guardsman. "Thank you, guardsman. You may return to your posts." The King spoke solemnly as he made a dismissive gesture. The guardsman stood and saluted before turning and leaving the audience hall. "What do you make of it, Lans? Why kill him?"

"Perhaps he is more dangerous than what we know of." It had been decided back on the ship when they had finally recovered Tom that no one was to talk about his 'other' powers in public, and the princess had sworn him to secrecy. Unless The King asked specifically, he would not say anything.

"Perhaps, but I hardly think that after so long in torture, he was able to defend himself to any great effect, let alone defeat two shadow tribesmen." The King paced before the plush cushions that were arranged like a great throne, a hand to his chin as he stroked the neatly trimmed whiskers of his beard.

From the door into the audience hall, a guard called out to the room, "May I present, Her Highness, Princess Rune Pronelius."

The princess came in from the outer chamber that led back into the castle. She had the slightest hint of barely slept nights about her eyes, but the make-up and finery she wore was meant to not give such away, but to distract from the obvious. Her father was not one of those who could be fooled so easily.

"So," The King clasped both of his hands behind his back and turned to face his daughter head on, "My headstrong daughter has decided to be seen from outside of the library for more than a few hours." The King layered sarcasm in his voice as he addressed the curtsying princess.

"Father," Rune sounded both respectful and cautious as she spoke, something that brought the King's focus all the more sharply on her, "You do know that tomorrow is my 18th birthday tomorrow."

"I am ever reminded by your loving mother of that fact." The King was speaking just as cautiously, walking somewhere that was both dangerous and new. "You didn't come here to the audience hall to remind me of this fact."

"No, I did not come for that reason." Rune adjusted her silk skirt and smoothed down the silk gloves that reached nearly to her elbows, a sign that she was just as nervous for what she was about to do. "I have come to the audience hall to place something down before The Lord of the Land."

Lans glanced nervously between The King and Rune, realizing that she was about to do something she had planned on and she wasn't at all sure that this was going to work. The King turned and took a seat in the cushions upon the dais, the aura of nobility that was his beginning to come from him something that was always his to wield.

"Speak, then, on this petition that you have." The King had slipped out of being cautious to being pretentious, assure of himself that whatever she could bring before him, he could simply dismiss.

Rune smoothed her skirts once more then looked squarely at her father. "I put before The Lord of the Land the right of Ab' Zakor."

It was the old language she had used, The King was sure of that. He had many lessons of the old language, but it had been so long since anyone had used it he wasn't sure what she had asked for. "Guardsman," The King summoned and the door guard saluted, "Send for The Librarian, Schtarubal."

Schtarubal was the most aged and wisest of all the court that even he would admit should rule in his stead should anything befall him. It had been the decision of The King and Queen that their daughter should be raised and taught by this most wise man, with the proper decorum added in for good measure. Had she found something in Schtarubal's books that could be used against him? Something didn't sit right with him and he was slowly becoming impatient.

Schtarubal was admitted into the audience room, his bedclothes hanging from him like an old King's garment. He looked a ragamuffin and newly roused from sleep, which is most likely where they had found him. "You summoned, My King?" was all the old man offered as he concealed a yawn between his hands.

"I did." Was the curt reply of The King. "My daughter has requested something of me that I need your skills in deciphering, something of the old tongue." Schtarubal offered Rune a bow, now realizing that he stood as advisor for something. Rune nodded to him and the King continued. "Advise me, aged one. What is Ab' Zakor?"

The old mans eyebrows raised slowly as he turned to the princess who merely nodded at him. "It means 'First Gift', Your Majesty." Schtarubal wracked his vocabulary for a translation, but The King beat him to his decision.

"If you are requesting for your first gift, then you will have to wait until the banquet where your presents shall be given to you." The King waved his hand as if that was an end to it, but Schtarubal intervened.

"That is not what she is asking for, My Lord." The King raised his eyebrows at this and rescrutinized his daughter. "Ab' Zakor is not asking of a gift, but demanding it. It is a law that began in the third dynasty of our country. Something that I didn't think she had been listening to with any zeal. I must reevaluate my decision of my pupil."

"Meaning?" The sound of teeth grinding must have been audible, for when The King spoke, Schtarubal jumped.

"She is asking for something that supersedes The Law of The Land." Schtarubal ducked his head as The King's eyes blazed. He wasn't looking at Schtarubal anymore, but at his own daughter for being outwitted by an age old custom.

"Speak your wish and be quick, lest my anger reach new heights." The King bristled righteous fury for the wrong thing being said.

The Princess had exactly the right fuel for the fire as she spoke. "By the right of Ab' Zakor, I am allowed one thing that is to be mine for any reason and to do with it as I see fit." The King nodded, knowing the trap was snapping shut very quickly now. "I therefore wish to take into my possession the man in Traitor's square as my protector."

"**WHAT?**" The King lunged out of his cushions and stood, vibrating anger. Both Schtarubal and Lans looked like they had swallowed their own tongues as Rune and her father stared down each other. This was a foregone conclusion as he knew the law allowed her to have it, no matter his decision. "FINE!" The King pointed down at his daughter, inflecting as much wrath as he could throw verbally. "You may have your protector! But at a price and one that is my own choosing!"

The King stalked the dais, beating out with his step every hateful thing he could possibly think of till he could settle on something that would be most undignifying. She would be ruined by the mere whispers, and it was everything she deserved.

"You may have your protector, but he is never to leave your side!" Rune's eyes sprung open in shock and disbelief. "When you sleep, he will sleep in the same room as you. When you eat he shall, eat with you. When you use the privy, He will be right there to hold your hand!"

Rune swayed on her feet, but The King wasn't finished. "The only time he may be away from you is when the city is under attack! Once the town is saved, he will return to you or you will both be arrested!" The King hurled his last spear at her saying, "You will then take up with him every crime committed by him, every sin produced, you will share with him everything! Now go and take your prize before I decide that you share his fate for this last day!"

Rune stayed and curtsied for just the briefest of moments to be respectful, but she had sealed her fate when she had approached her father. Turning without a 'by your leave', she left the audience room, closely followed by Schtarubal himself.

"You as well, Lans, for I fear that you had a hand in this, and I do not wish to see you in my presence right now." The King shook with barely contained rage, and the sound of Lans leaving through a hidden guard slot allowed The King to be by him. He didn't know what he was going to do with himself for the next few hours, but he hoped she was happy with her 'First Gift'.

* * *

He heard voiced and felt something coarse underneath himself, something that made his skin feel like sandpaper. "How is he, doctor?" The voice of an angel spoke in his ear softly, and a dim light was coming from off to his side. He flexed his fingers softly, realizing they tingled with blood rushing back into them. 

"He is pretty bad off, I'm not sure what I can do for him except give him food and water." The second voice was very precise, very professional, as if they had seen all there was to see.

"Lans, please get the professor and bring her here." The voice spoke again, soft and alluring. It was grating on his ears and making him feel miserable all over, something he thought he had gotten used to on the second day. He didn't know how long he had been tied to the post, but it had been far too long. "Bring me something smooth to eat and clean to drink, he must digest something before he dehydrates anymore." The soft voice spoke of authority used to jumping and the sound of feet moving were most likely those orders being carried out.

His chest hurt, for a wonder. Gravity pulled down on him, pressing his body down onto something with the consistency of rock. It was cold however, and he weeped tears he didn't think he had left in him. All those long days of baking and freezing endlessly repeated over and over in his head, making him wonder when his skin would crack open from the temperature changes. The first voice he heard was one he was not expecting.

"I was beginning to wonder if he had escaped or not." Shaela's voice rang in whatever place he had been brought to. "The people in the town market remarked that he wasn't hanging around anymore."

"I found a way to break him free of that without bringing down the wrath of my father." Tom's brain wasn't working quiet well. The voice said father, but he couldn't be sure whose father at this point. His own Father loomed out of the darkness behind his eyes, the leering specter of hate and shame that always haunted him.

His brain and ears reengaged when he felt someone's hands on his back. "He's pretty cooked. These off worlders are difficult to kill off." The fingers were trying to be as soft as possible, but any touch right now was needles jammed into soft, fleshly places. He groaned weakly and the hand pulled back in short order.

"Tom!" Jason's voice echoed down some hall far away, yet it was coming closer with every call. Tom shifted weakly wanting to open his eyes, but was too weak to try.

"Shut up, already!" Shaela's yell rattling off the back of his brain sent cringes along his body, which just made him hurt even more.

Jason must have come in the room because someone sat down roughly next to him. The feel of a coarse hand grabbed hold of his and squeezed hard, popping his joints audibly. "I'm so sorry I couldn't help, Dude." Jason sounded upset to the point of tears.

"Jas," Tom muttered weakly, still unable to open his eyes, "Shut up." Silence hit his ears and he smiled weakly.

Jason chuckled softly. Tom was able to be an ass even hurt as he was, and Jason was assured that his friend was going to be all right. He was even more assured when everyone else finally appeared from whatever they had been doing.

Jason was feeding Tom slowly, having taken the bowl of oatmeal from Afera. Washu sat next to Rune and was typing into her computer, trying to figure out why his body wasn't healing like it should have been. Miz was insisting that she could heal him just as well, but not sounding happy that she was going to have to. Lans stood vigil behind Rune, his hands on her shoulders and looking resolute if not resigned.

"Well, the only thing I can find is that the machines in his body are acting weird." Washu said it bluntly so she wouldn't have to try to explain something everyone else wouldn't understand. "They should be working to heal his body as well as enhance his speed, but all they're doing is making him fast."

"So he still has his speed then." Jason fed Tom another mouthful of oatmeal, Tom sucking at the spoonful and swallowing what he could from where he laid.

"The problem with his speed is that he can fracture something or rip it clean off if he were to clip something wrong." Washu could just imagine what that would feel like. "That's why we gave him the healing power, for just such cases."

"So he's as mortal as everyone else is then." Lans spoke it more like a question than a statement, and Washu got was he couldn't say.

"Yes and No." Washu brought up a schematic of Tom's wavelengths, brain wave, spiritual, and astral patterns floated in three separate screens. "This is what they were when he was first modified." The screens showed a pattern of colors surfing along the spiritual with an underlying dark line at the base. Brain patterns fluctuated from one high to a low just as deep, and his astral was of a solid humanoid form.

"This is what it is now." The three screens changed and it was obvious to everyone that this couldn't be the same person. The spiritual pattern still had the colored spectrum running from one side to the other, but now the underlying band of darkness was a sheet of darkness had covered the colors, muting them. The brain pattern wasn't normal either, spiking irregularly from one extreme to another. The spiritual form wasn't even human either, wings like a monstrous leviathan coming off the back and stretching outward as if in flight shown at everyone from where they sat.

"He is still in the process of changing too, which is probably why his healing is being retarded. His body is accustoming itself to this new pattern, and while that is happening, he can't heal by himself." Washu sat back and let everybody absorb this information.

"Are you trying to tell us that he's going to metamorphose into this winged freak?" Jason had forgotten to give Tom another spoonful, which was fine with Tom since he had passed back out.

"His body won't." Washu spoke and everyone looked confused. "Think of it like your soul changing into something else. You wouldn't feel right being in your current body then, like you don't belong." The priestess' looked like they understood what Washu was saying, a confused look just hung on Jason's face.

"How long till he returns to normal?" Miz asked as she placed her hands to Tom's head, already delving his body to heal him.

"Maybe never." Washu shook her head. "He is possessed by something that isn't normal, the essence of chaos. It could keep changing him forever, or it may well fix tomorrow."

A sickly look came over Miz's face and she stepped back quickly from Tom, breathing deeply. "I can't heal him." She spoke, trying to keep from throwing up.

"Why not?" Afera looked angry and Washu curious.

"It's not like before." Miz had to dive into a person's being to heal them, so none of the others could understand without her explaining. "His body is supposed to be like land and water is supposed to sink into it and cleanse it. My delving acts much the same, but his body feels like something defiled the land he was made of. There is filth so indescribably putrid as to make my talent rebel on wanting to heal it. It's like I'm trying to heal a corpse 3 years dead."

"So he must heal naturally or not at all." Ryoko looked at the hurt on Jason's face, the wishing that there was something he could do other than this.

Tom's eyes popped open and a low growl rumbled from his throat as he tried to rise up to his hands and knees. Hands reached to him to press him downward till his flesh rippled. Welts seeped pus and blood as they opened reflexively, spewing out toxins and disease from his wounds before healing back over. Blisters popped and oozed wetly nearly all at once all over his body, soddening the cover that was draped over his body. Everyone stepped back as the disease was shucked from his body, the smell of the sickness being forced out nearly nauseating.

A growth of beard was beginning to form on his face as he rolled away from the stone he was laying on, shucking at the disgusting wrap the cover had become. He was covered in dirt and filth that looked nasty and smelled ten times worse. The shimmer of something black flickered across Tom's chest without him noticing, but which made everyone step back even further.

"I hate it when I do that." Tom spat over at the floor to his left, saliva mixed with a congealed blood clot hitting the floor wetly.

* * *

Once Tom had been cleaned and showered, even shaved to his content, he was ordered to burn his clothes and get new ones, which was fine by him. Livery had come and measured him, taking his girth and height into account, then had rushed off to get him something to wear. He was now walking around in a robe, very breezy for him, and way too exposing. Why he had to wear something silk was beyond him, but why he had to hang around the princess was even more aggravating. 

"So you're saying that he's not allowed to be away from you for anything?" Jason was walking next to his bud, and being just as confused if not amused by what he was hearing.

"It is so." The princess had returned to her chambers for a new set of clothes ever since she had left Tom to be cleaned. A blue cream color to her gown complemented the flower crown she had been given by one of her guests who had come to pay their respects.

Jason laughed. "Oh, this is good…" he spoke softly as he was unable to resist.

"Not…..funny." Tom looked like he was walking to the executioners block, a crime supposedly committed and he the innocent condemned to death.

"Would you prefer to be placed back in Traitor's Square?" Tom's shudder at the suggestion all the answer he was deeming that with. The princess walked on before her bodyguard, wondering what it was going to be like later on today.

They walked into the ball room, people and nobility already gathered for the princess' birthday party assembled and waiting for the guest of honor to arrive. Jason patted Tom on the shoulder and walked into the crowd, or more likely over to the table that had been set for snacks to nibble on. Ryoko intercepted him halfway to his goal, her own garment changed for something trim and silky, yellow and low cut to show off herself more. Jason glanced back at Tom, an unspoken plea at his friend. Tom smiled and waved at him, giving him a thumbs up and chuckling to himself.

Rune walked into the assembled throng of people and Tom took up a spot nearby, out of the way and out of sight. He could see Lans nearby making sure the guard were assembled and attentive, his job never done. Tom caught his eye and nodded toward him, Lans doing the same before each returned back to their duties. With his hyper speed, he was able to see everything at once in so short of time, he knew what everyone was doing and what they weren't doing, nothing out of the ordinary and everything the way it should have been.

Ryoko wouldn't leave Jason's side for a moment, which made his friend look panicky. Washu wasn't in attendance, probably off somewhere attending to scientific stuff that flowed through her veins. Miz and Afera were also in attendance, Miz looking more the debutante that Afera could pull off. Miz in a cream laced gown and her hair in a coif, Afera with her hair somehow stylized in a different set that before instead of curls in her hair.

Shaela was nowhere to be seen, which was strange considering how devoted to Afera she was reported to be. Reported hell, he had seen them doing something that only lovers did, he needed no other proof. Maybe she wasn't the ballsy type, which brought a grin to his face if not for long.

He had seen a face, one he had wondered if he'd ever see again, and it was coming at him. The color was all wrong, but the way the angle was set and how the eyes gleamed defiance was all he needed to see to know who it was. She walked over to him, her dark blue gown bordered on black that seemed to cling to everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She curtsied in front of him and he bowed, if slowly, keeping with the façade that she was giving off to everyone.

"Congratulations on surviving your torturer." Her voice couldn't be heard, but his mind thought it had heard it, like an illusion slung from the desert to the eyes. "I thought I'd let you know before you were to shocked from my arrival. I am going to make you Tok-Ran." Tom looked at her confused and uneasily, something about her saying that making him worried in an unknown way.

"I will find you tonight. We will talk." She turned and walked back off into the crowd, disappearing before his eyes like she had never existed.

Something about her mentioning Tok-Ran to him before brought a stirring to the back of his head, like something he was trying to work loose from his teeth, annoying but there none the less. He shook his head and received a look from Lans who was just passing by his position. Tom made a shrug and Lans kept moving, keeping his eyes roving on not only the people, but on anything that shouldn't belong.

Thirty minutes into the party, Tom was thoroughly bored. He had been standing in this spot for so long, he thought the floor had swallowed his feet. Lans was making light commentary with a few of the guests at this point, but was still looking around from time to time to keep his guard and the safety of his ward up. Jason and Ryoko had appeared once to hand him a drink and ask if he wanted to get away, but he had declined and they had left. He still held the cup in his hand, untouched since he had first been offered it.

The light from outside had finally dimmed and the dancing had picked up in earnest as the musicians set to with a tune that made Tom grit his teeth. The music moved through so many different variations of fast to slow, high and low as to set Mozart biting his hands off at the wrists. He couldn't be bothered to look up at them, his taste in music definitely hurt and dying somewhere in a very dark hole far from this torture.

Rune had unwrapped her presents by this time and had time to at least change into something a bit less formal now that the party was fully underway. A cream lace gown fit for three princesses, she walked in with every new trinket she had gotten in place somewhere on person. She didn't look happy, from Tom's view, more like a grinning chandelier that was being paraded around for the debutantes to gawk and awe at.

It was in that glare of finery and light that Tom saw it move, just a brief disturbance that his enhanced speed caught, like a stutter of a film as it skipped over a tear in the reel. He moved faster than sight, capturing the thing that had caught his sight and moved it out into the hall before they had their chance. They had already pierced his chest, their professionalism allowing them at least the moment to retaliate before Tom ended their career. He didn't stop until he had made it several halls away from the party and the partygoers, then stopped before a retinue of guards who were surprised to see him appear with the dead shadowen in his arms.

"Get rid of this." Tom slung the dead body on the nearest of the guards before he sped back to the party and took up the cup in his hands again.

Everyone looked a bit ruffled at the sudden gust that had come out of nowhere and a few people eyed the wind priestess as the source of their annoyance. Afera was already on her way out the door of the chamber, Miz in tow, as she and her compatriot were partied out. Indeed, the party was proceeding into the late hours of the day and many of the partygoers who had not drunk themselves into a new fervor were giving their farewells and well wishes to the now adult Princess Rune.

It was then declared by the Advisor to the Court, an old man named Schtarubal, that those who wished to continue may. Rune took it as a sign that the party was over and had taken to foot even as the Advisor was giving excuse for the other revelers to remain and enjoy the fare. Tom fell in behind Rune followed shortly by Lans as she made her way out of the room and had gathered her coterie of women and guards. Catching Lans eyes, Tom inclined his head back behind them and both he and Lans slowed their pace.

It was a short description, but Lans still took it like a personal blow when Tom told him what had almost happened. "Damn those illusionists!" Lans muttered under his breath. "They have the audacity to try and slay the princess on her birthing day!"

"Easy, old man, or you're going to pop a seam." Tom waved at him to distract him. He thought Lans' eyes were staring hard enough to crack the walls around them so he switched targets quickly for him. "I haven't seen priestess Shaela all day." He looked up and down the hall for anyone lolly gagging around where they shouldn't be.

"She was said to have been seen heading into town. Most likely to the taverns again for a fight." Lans shook his head in a disapproving manner.

"Fighting?" Tom looked at Lans, his eyes showing interest.

"Aye." Lans sounded disgusted. "When the mercenaries aren't arguing amongst themselves, they set up an arena nearby in the stone quarries that are mined out for their minerals and ores. There's a passage from the town to the quarries without having to go across the waterway in town down in the lower part of town."

Tom walked on in silence, not listening to anything Lans said to him anymore. Mercenaries and passageways out of town into other areas. This wasn't a good strategy and especially not an effective protection for the town. Placing a hand on Lans' arm, Tom looked at him and asked, "Where can I get a mask made at?"

* * *

**well as you have seen first hand, torture is nothing you should do unless you intend on doing it with moderation and with love. (You sickos)**

**Tom now works under Princess Rune as a servant (too funny) and as a servant for the city of Floreshtica. Things are definitely not going to last, especially the peace as humanity is trapped in one city. Bugrom and Shadowen will no doubt attack, and attack soon. If he has to fight for a prolonged time, will the Armor come out once again?**

**Time will only tell as his sanity slips marginally away under the effects of something not human, until nothing but the Armor remains. Maybe the Juridians are right. Maybe he does need destroyed...**

**T.T.F.N.**


	13. Chapter Twelve

From here on out, all hell is going to break loose. There may be an occasional lull in the fighting, but I guarantee, it'll be a fight to the death for anyone and everyone. I mention here that there are some major adult tones at the end of this chapter, but then again, the story is rated M and no children should be reading this in the first place. Proceed without my permission and at your own risk.

Disclaimer: I do not own the right to use any and all information (characters, places, powers, ect.) associated to the El Hazard universe nor Tenchi series. I only own Tom, Jason, the Armor of Darkness and now added Nazak, Ragland and Malani. More character additions may come, but I highly doubt it.

* * *

Chapter 11

**The Nights of Endless Madness**

It was three nights later when Tom was finally able to enact a few things he had checked out. Getting a cloak the way he wanted it had been the biggest drawback because he couldn't see around the edges when he brought it around his face. People thought he had something to hide and he had to make with the hasty escape before someone did start asking the wrong questions. The Castle guards were his biggest problem, all now knowing what he looked like and all of them told not to let him leave the grounds or without an escort.

With what he had planned, he couldn't afford to have someone tagging along with him, not even his friend. Night had fallen once more on the city of Floreshtica, Shaela was making her way toward some place once more that she told no one about nor cared to enlighten. Tom stalked across the rooftop of a forge, the sounds of a hammer on anvil clanging into the night even as the city around them tried to sleep. Giving only a cursory glance at her surroundings, Shaela made sure she wasn't being followed and disappeared down an alley away from the main street.

There was, at the end of the alleyway, an old escape hole dug right out of the ground, light coming up from the bottom the only indication that it was being used as the dust around it was undisturbed. Shaela was in a hurry, she didn't even glance around as she made her way to the hole and climbed down into it, the sound of metal reverberating off the stone walls below. Tom followed in short order, now acting like a mercenary or as close to one as could be believable.

At the bottom of the ladder was a rat's maze of catacombs and passages leading off into every which way into town. Tom could well imagine what would happen to the town if the entrance to this place was found by any of the attacking forces. Keeping an eye on Shaela, he walked behind her for over ten minutes before the sounds of cheering could be heard ahead of them.

Shaela had gone off someplace on her own when Tom had finally arrived outside. The area was riddled with fighters of every type, men and women were fighting on various levels of the excavation areas either using their hands or outright drawing blood. Money was changing hands faster than Tom wanted to think about, some of the fights ending in a draw or being ended by an onlooker who had gotten his bet's worth. He felt like he had walked into a new part of hell, one where the fighting never ended and honor was nothing more than a word never used here.

Even as Tom looked onward, a new arena of sorts opened up as the onlookers pulled back and let two people into the center. One of the fighters happened to be Shaela, and she looked happier than he had ever seen her. The other was a scar faced warrior with tan clothing on, the perpetual look of someone accustomed to being out in the middle of nowhere with only a weapon and a will to survive. The man came in and nodded at Shaela as he removed his weapons from his belt and handed them to another warrior dressed like him.

The fight began with no signal, no referee, Shaela rushed in close as the man did the same. Each had their hands flat like they were going to chop at each other from whatever angle they could, instead turning them into thrusts and jabs, fingers flashing to knuckles with every movement of their hands. Betting was exchanging fast and furious between onlookers and drunks alike, some wenches in something close to clothing hanging from a few men's arms. Tom saw the knifeman first, coming in from behind the fighter in the dusty clothes.

Tom stepped in toward the fighters making it look like he stumbled and pushed both roughly toward one side. The knifeman switched ungainly as his feet tried to slide out from underneath him, the smell of alcohol heavy on him as he collided into Tom's cloaked body. Tom pivoted and grabbed the wrist that held the knife, then grabbed the guy's waist and spun. It wasn't fast enough to throw him to far, but it was enough to send him ungainly into a few mercenaries that were very unhappy that someone tried to off their odds on bet.

Someone grabbed his shoulder from behind and Tom moved on instinct rather than impulse. He turned with the hand but knocked it off him as he reached with his other and grabbed the throat of the tan clothed warrior. What surprised Tom next was how easily he was nearly killed. The man had moved his arm as Tom had turned and knocked his hand away, then bent Tom back over his leg and locked his head with Tom bent backwards.

He was so surprised with the move that he didn't even try to fight back, keeping his hands down by his side and trying not to reach up and provoke the killing move. He splayed his hands up and out from him, showing that he held no weapon and was let loose from the submission move. The scar faced warrior let him up slowly, but Tom could feel a hand running over him and under his cloak as someone searched him for anything that could be used as a weapon. Satisfied, the warrior turned Tom around and looked him in the mask.

"What kind of fool comes to Tokimi's Cauldron without a weapon on his body?" The scar faced man bellowed out and the crowds around the cauldron started going quiet.

Shaela came up next to him and looked Tom in the mask as well, obvious that she didn't know who she was facing. "What the hell is going on here, Nazak? You said you weren't being followed."

The scar faced man looked down at Shaela. "You're the one who's been to far gone from the desert, little sand rat." Shaela blushed slightly at the admonishment, but at least he hadn't been obvious about it to anyone not close by. Raising his voice once more, the man named Nazak yelled, "We have fresh blood here, Mercenaries!"

Tom was grabbed by both arms and drug toward the central pit forcefully, though he really wasn't trying to resist. The lowest point in the quarry could be seen by everyone in the mining area. It was the best lit and also the deepest point, making it ideal or arena fighting, one on one. Being thrown in ungainly, Tom landed poorly on the floor below.

"Fresh Blood! Fresh Blood! Fresh Blood!" The chant ran around the quarry from the lips of everyone who could watch. Tom stood and dusted himself off as he looked around, feeling like he was about to be put into a show of a lifetime. Nazak appeared at the lowest point before being in the pit, and waved for silence, with came slowly.

"We throw new blood in this here hole because they're either too young, or too stupid to know any better than to try us old vets out." Cackles and outright laughter burst out and Nazak waved his hand for silence. "Since your new blood, we'll give you a taste of what it's like to try us old ones out." Snide laughter rainied down at him at this, but Tom ignored it for the time being.

A dagger was thrown from somewhere and landed point down in the dirt in front of Tom's feet no closer than a few inches. He tried not to flinch and was rewarded with a few catcalls and jeers when he didn't do more than walk away from the weapon. An old grizzled warrior came into the pit, his armor was a bit ragged, but still in study shape to take a serious blow from anything here and keep him alive. He had left his helmet off, and Tom was going to make him regret that.

"Pick the weapon up, boy." The grizzled vet ordered Tom as he pulled a short sword out and readjusted his hands on a wooden shield.

"Pick your teeth up, old man." Tom called back and the old man glared death at Tom.

Rushing Tom with the shield blocking the sight of his weapon, Tom waited till the old man swung his weapon and shield at the same time in a batting and piercing motion. Tom jumped up and spun slowly, the cloak barely catching the top of the shield as Tom caught the man's head with his feet and swung backwards. The old man rolled forward off his feet as his head was snapped forward, not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to offset his balance and leave him vulnerable.

Tom landed on his stomach, the old man landed on his head as Tom had wanted him to. As the unconscious warrior rolled forward, his weapon and shield fell limply from his limp hands. The cheering had stopped by this time and Nazak now stood with a sour look on his face. Motioning for two men to go in, Tom moved away from the old vet as they came and collected him.

"Ragland was a good friend of mine." Nazak spoke loud enough for his voice to carry. "If you've killed him, you'll never make it out of The Cauldron alive."

"He'll have a headache and nothing more." Tom tilted his head to the right. "Well, he may have a bruise. I doubt the ground is that soft."

A female warrior had jumped in next, one of the tan clothes ones, and her hair was a bit brighter than what Shaela's was. "You'll fight me next, and you'll lose poorly." The woman's voice was high pitched and her clothes were light, but from what Tom could tell, she was only a girl.

"Malani! Get out of there this instant!" Shaela called from next to Nazak, Nazak not looking as confident as before. If anything, he looked a bit scared for the girl.

"He hurt my Uncle!" Malani called and she rushed at the man, hands held in that ridged chopping pose. "He should suffer for it!"

Tom wasn't dealing with this. The girl rushed, unmindful of her safety and Tom let her have it. With a single blow just below her ribcage, Tom punched her hard enough to knock the wind out of her mouth in mid roar. The hand that had nearly jabbed one of his eyes out crumpled as the life was knocked out of it.

"Malani!" Nazak jumped into the pit and ran over to Tom who held the girl up. She was gasping for air, Tom patting her back softly as she coughed and sucked in a big gulp of oxygen.

Tom said nothing as Shaela joined them. He stared long and hard at Nazak who stared just as hard back at him. Shaela sat the girl down who was wiping at her face and glaring hate up at Tom as Tom stepped away and kneeled before Nazak. "I submit myself for your judgment." Tom spoke loud so that everyone could hear what was going on in the arena.

Someone signaled from off to where they had taken the old warrior, Ragland. "Nazak," a third warrior called down, a young man this time, "Ragland is awake and wanting another round with the masked one! He's not very happy!"

This made Nazak's face not so angry. "I would know who you are, Fresh Blood." He asked Tom, clasping his arms across his chest.

Tom played stupid, which he though came naturally to him. "I have no name. My people are gone and with them my ties. I have no family and want none, for only death could be my gift to them."

Nazak crooked a smile at him. "You speak like a man married to Mor-Deth. You would make a shadow woman swoon over your words."

"And want to put a dagger in my heart when we lay together." Tom grinned, morbid jokes a good sign that he was getting out of the woods.

Something caught Tom's ears, something that was moving through the wind with a great amount of speed. Tom listened as it sang its way through the air, searching for its earthbound target. Everyone else must have noticed it, for a great many of the mercenaries raised shields above their heads and called that an attack was coming. Nazak moved to stand over Shaela and Malani while Tom stood and pivoted, looking skyward as it was coming closer.

He clapped his hands together in front of his face and fell backwards, the sound deceptively far away as an arrow nearly took his head off his shoulders. The force of stopping something that had been falling a good way knocked Tom off his feet and into the ground, but thankfully, he had not been pierced. There was something on the tip that splashed off and hit the ground by his ear, something that made the rock sizzle. Tom threw the arrow to the side and looked up at the edge of the quarry that was high overhead.

Just on the edge, notching another arrow to bow, A Shadow Warrior astride a Bugrom was preparing to take another shot. "Spear! Throw me a spear!" Tom called and someone threw him a small and way too light spear. Tom threw down the weapon with a curse, "I said spear, not toothpick!"

A heavier spear was thrown down at him and Tom pivoted it around as the rider fired another arrow down from on high. Tom sighted only once and launched the spear made javelin as hard as he could toward the rider and his mount. Tom was moving even as he let go, reaching out with his hand as the arrow whizzed downward with deadly force. Nazak never moved as the arrow came on, and he knew he was the intended target, yet he stared down the weapon with a murderous defiance.

Tom was able to get his hand in between Nazak and the arrow before it struck, though it took Tom in the wrist and spun him hard around. It burned, whatever was on the tip, burned like lightning as it rushed through his body. Tom snapped the arrow tip clean from his arm and threw it away then wrapped his hurt arm close to his body, hoping whatever toxins was on it could be washed out. He felt feverish and sick, he could even taste blood on his lips.

Nazak had rolled him over and was trying to pry loose Tom's arm from his grasp. Cutting an oath off, Tom pulled away from Nazak and got to his knees. He retched everything in his stomach out as his body fought at the impurities washing themselves around in his blood. It was a good ten minutes before Tom could even think about moving, and when he did, everybody stood armed and ready around him.

Nazak looked bewildered and pulled at Tom's arm, watching as it healed over what was left of the hole. Shaela walked over to him and pulled his mask off, exposing his face for all to see. A few muttered the word "Traitor's Square" and spat in his general direction, the rest notching arrows and preparing to shoot.

"This is the man I spoke of, Nazak." Shaela said as she stood back next to the scarred warrior. "He is an annoyance and a pain in my ass. He is also a liar." Tom glared at Shaela, daring her to say something like that again.

"He is Hryed Mah Alousch." Three more tan skinned warriors appeared from out of the crowd and threw their weapons down in front of Tom. "He is prophesy, and I will fight with him.

* * *

"Your Majesty, the warriors of Val Astanri have arrived." The guardsman at the door announced to the audience room with a look of unease. "They say that they wish for someone else to join them in their meeting. It would appear as if the princess' guardsman is with them."

This was troubling news for The King. The people of the endless sands did not ask anything more than was necessary and for them to ask for this man to be here was something he had not planned on. The King took a mental second to readjust his plans for the desert rats as they were called amongst themselves and then nodded for the guardsman to allow in his 'guests'. The doors were opened for them and in walked six of the most unlikely of people. There were two old men in their gray years, one child of a girl and what looked to be her sibling in years, the off worlder known as the princess' guardsman since his release, and the fire priestess of Mount Muldoon.

"I didn't know that the fire priestess was of your clan, Nazak." The King said as he began his dance of state.

"I put the desert into her when she was young." For the people of Val Astanri, 'putting the desert' means training them in the ways of living in the harshest of places. The King wondered as to the meaning of Nazak's wanting the off worlder to be here, but decided to keep to the subject at hand.

"You have come at my summons and I thank you for your troubles, Nazak." The King could very well guess that Nazak's people were in a very bad position if the leader of the desert people came himself.

"I have brought every available hand I could find from my clan holdings here for a reason, King of the Woods." The name the people of the sands had given him, something was not well if he used that title in this offering. "I have one thousand warriors strong waiting outside the city gates, willing to fight in this battle for survival. I have also brought what's left of my clans together, some five thousand people, asking for your grace and protection."

What's left of them? The clans of the desert are gone? For Nazak to admit something so bluntly was proof enough. Nazak was never one to dance around secrets. He had always thought such was like lying to your face. For all of the clans to be here and to be united could only mean one thing.

"Guardsman! Send word to the gates immediately that they are to allow the desert people into the town as fast as they can." Nazak slumped slightly, the briefest of tensions being released. His people would live to see another day, at least this day.

"We cannot at this moment, Your Majesty." The guardsman looked stressed as an outer patrolman bent double on him, breathing heavily. "Word has just come to us that the gates are under siege by The Bugrom, and that they are swarming the bridge to the land."

The out worlder turned at this, looking back at the guardsman and out of the audience hall, looking stunned. The next moment, he was no longer there, the sound of wind whipping away back down the halls out of the audience chamber the only sounds at his passing. Shaela was of the same mind as he was for she was moving out of the hall, following him quickly but not nearly as fast as the other.

"We must go, Your Majesty." Nazak shook with barely held dignity, his want to save his people becoming over powering for the weathered man. Already, the younger ones had unsheathed their weapons and began heading after the fire priestess.

"Good hunting, Nazak." The King gave his blessing and within moments, he was left alone. The King weighed his options of what was about to happen down by the bridge back to the mainland. He did hate the off worlder, but Nazak was a trusted friend of his that he would cry for should he lose him. Marshaling his thoughts, The King called for his armor.

* * *

Jason had wanted this day to come sooner that what it had, now he wished it had never come. He was already fighting in the thick of these creatures, battering them back with blows that would level trees, but their bodies broke under his force and were completely useless for anything but slowing him down. The wind priestess was doing what she could do as well, flying air support and sending down roiling gusts of wind from the sides that knocked some of them off the bridge was about all she could do.

The Bugrom were living up to their name, they crawled over everything that wasn't level ground. There were warriors that were coming along the sides of the bridge and a few that had already made the city walls. Afera's biggest problem was the city walls as the guards were having difficulty knocking back the bugs that had made it that far. She could pull a few from off the walls with well placed wind blasts, but a few hung on tenaciously no matter how hard she blew at them.

Miz was doing what she could as well, Jason had gone to ground outside the city gates and she had stayed on the ramparts, which gave her a great view across the bridge. Unfortunately, she couldn't see along the side of the bridge, which limited her field of view to the enemy before her and not the enemy that was more dangerous.

Ryoko was doing what she could as well, but her high intensity energy shots would blow away the bridge that Jason stood on, so she was restricted to knocking the bugs off the bridge in a more physical manner than what Jason would have preferred. She dived in and swooped back out with a bug or two held in her hands just long enough to launch them down into the lake where their brethren were drowning at. It was frustrating work to see her do that over and over again, and each time nearly get hurt as the things tried to drag her down with them.

A mob of Bugrom jumped him form every which way, smothering his sight and pressing him down under a sea of vermin. They bit and clawed, sliced and tore at him as they could. Trying to find any weakness they could on him. Jason panicked for the briefest of moments as he felt the attacks on him and a primal fear slipped free from somewhere in the back of his mind. The light of day suddenly appeared followed by the screeching sound of Bugrom falling back off of him as something fought against them in a new front that sent them retreating.

Jason stood to see that Tom had finally arrived, carrying a broken staff like two batons in each hand. The ends had bladed sickles on the other sides, reminding Jason of miniature scythes that farmers used on crops back on earth. With a flurry of slashes and an intense yelling that echoed as he moved in a quick dance of death, Tom slew back the wave of Bugrom that still forced their way into his grizzly embrace.

"It's about time you got here!" Jason yelled at his friend, stepping back and finding something he himself could use for a weapon. The attacking waves of Bugrom stopped their assault at the beginning of the bridge and watched as the last of their brethren on the bridge were cut down in a bloody dance.

Tom came back, sweat beading his forehead. "Sorry, did you say something?" he asked Jason as he smiled a grin that oozed showoff. Tom turned around and looked at the far end of the bridge where the rest of the attacking force waited at. "Wonder what they're up to?" Tom muttered as Jason picked up a dropped sword.

"Second wave, perhaps?" Jason offered his own thoughts on what may be going on down there, also wondering why they had pulled back as they did.

"Miz!" Tom yelled up to the ramparts, trying to get the water priestess' attention.

"What is it? Can't you see that I'm busy?" She had reappeared from over the side, some blood crusting her face where she had brushed it on her cheeks unknowingly.

"Can you create a mist on the bridge?" Tom pointed back down across the bridge toward the Bugrom. Jason cocked an eyebrow at Tom but stayed silent.

"Of course I can, but that would give the Bugrom something to hide in." Miz turned and disappeared back over the side.

"I think someone is already hiding out there, in plain sight!" Tom yelled back up at Miz, bringing Jason around to look across the bridge.

Jason stared loosely, letting his eyes go slightly out of focus as he looked at the far end of the bridge. There was a slight blurring out there, like a piece of glass not quite polished of its flaws moving back and forth. The blurring reached from one side to the other of the bridge, like a wave of heat causing a disturbance to the air.

"Shadowen!" Jason yelled as Tom turned around and took up a defensive stance.

"Miz! We need mist now!" Tom yelled once more, still not being able to see what Jason was seeing.

Water began to rise up from the lake in droplets, gathering together in patches and spots in the air. The water coalesced together more and more as it rose, becoming a sizable patch of mist as it finally reached the landing of the bridge. As the cloudy substance rose, holes began to appear in the mist, spots that were moving very quickly toward Tom and Jason. Tom didn't give them the opportunity to reach them as he sped at them, slicing at about head level for the average person. All but a few of the invisible attackers went down with a wet spraying as either Tom's blade sheared through neck and sinew, or through skull and brain as they tried to duck under his attack.

Only two had survived Tom's initial attack, heading toward Jason with short blades coming free and their invisibility falling away. Tom yelled something back at Jason but he blocked it out as he knocked one blade down and slugged the shadowen with authority. The second moved in from the wrong side where Jason couldn't bring the weapon into play easily, but like that mattered with someone who couldn't be hurt, right?

The blade swung, and Jason stepped into the swing, cutting the piercing move short as it came up from below. There was a dull feeling and a sharp pain as the blade slipped into his chest from below his left arm and drove to the hilt. Jason was shocked as he stepped back, feeling around at the hilt that was lodged into his body. He had been hurt? What the hell?

Jason stepped back again, his feet unsteady as he tried to keep his balance. This wasn't supposed to happen, he was supposed to be invulnerable. Had Washu and Tom lied to him all this time? He was going to die because of some belief that he was unstoppable and had been foolish enough to believe in it. Jason fell backwards as he closed his eyes, falling into oblivion.

* * *

The kick that broke the shadowen's neck launched the wrecked shell of a body out into the lake below. The other shadowen had already been eviscerated by his weapons that he had dropped when he saw Jason stagger back from the blow the shadowen had used on him. Jason fell backwards and his eyes fluttered closed, Tom reaching him before he fell totally to the ground.

There was nothing wrong with his buddy, nothing physical anyway. The blade that had tried to pierce his chest was caught in the shirt that Jason was wearing, the blade bent irregularly from the force of impact. Feeling for Jason's pulse, his friend's heartbeat was slow, but not so slow as to be life threatening.

Seeing that one of the defenders on the bridge had fallen, The Bugrom screeched as one and began rushing down the bridge once more in a sea of hatred. Tom didn't have much time, and he knew it. Dragging his friend up against the gates, he signaled for the guardsman to open the doors just long enough for him to get his friend inside then turn and face the onslaught alone.

Or so he thought when from the gate into town stepped the fire priestess and the four desert warriors that he had met last night. Nazak looked casually at the carcasses of the defeated Bugrom and looked at Tom with a curious eye.

"I hope you weren't intending on killing all of them by yourself." He reached back on his belt and pulled free a leather mask of some unknown skin and placed in on his face.

"The thought had crossed my mind." The rest of Nazak's little entourage donned similar masks, and pulled free a set of short bows. Shaela looked set on her foes ahead of her as a disturbance of heat made her form shimmer in the light.

"Malani, Saheef, keep your distance from Ragland and me." Nazak was already planning out the attack that he wanted, knowing what must be done. "When you run out of arrows, you may join us." Nazak and Ragland began charging at their collective foe with a shouted, "Val Astanri!"

Shaela and Tom met the foe before Nazak and Ragland could be put into danger. Tom's speed and Shaela's fire was a deadly combination of physical and elemental power working side by side. Ragland and Nazak were expert killers from their land of survivors, maiming those that were in the way of others and outright killing more to block the attack of many more. The arrows that rained down from behind from Malani and Saheef brought wounding misery to those lucky enough to survive an encounter from the deadly bolts of trained hunters.

Still the wave of creatures came on in a relentless wave of screeching, clawing fury. There was no end to be seen and even worse, no rest for the fighters as fresh enemies sprung from the fallen. Ragland pulled back slightly as a near fatal swipe cut his collar and in that space, a Bugrom filled the gap where he had previously been. It was getting to be so that the flames that Shaela was using couldn't be used over so wide of an area, and that helped press the attack of the Bugrom even more.

Tom had gotten a thought, it was a wild, desperate move, but it was coming down to being desperate. "Shaela, I have an idea on how to end this in one try, but I need your help."

"Let's hear it!" Shaela looked and scorched a Bugrom back with her eyes alone as she summoned small fireballs to launch at her encroaching enemies.

"Can you ignite your entire body on fire?" Tom rapid fisted several enemies at once then launched a kick into one that had jumped at him, knocking it hard back the way it had come.

"Of course I can, but how's that supposed to help?" Shaela glanced over at Tom and sent another wave of fire into the ranks of foes, the dead piling higher as they fell.

"Nazak, Ragland!" Tom yelled at the two desert fighters, knowing they heard but were too busy to look around. "Me and Shaela are going to end this, but we need a second to set up! Get Ready!"

If anything, Nazak and Ragland increased their attack, moving into a frenzy of moving death that would give Tom a moment of hesitation. Tom wasting the effort that Nazak was doing for him, Tom came over and shoulder tackled into the lake below a few bugs as he came over to Shaela. "Climb on my back! Now, while there's still time!"

Shaela looked for a moment confused and repulsed, but didn't have an excuse not to. She went astride of Tom's back, riding in a piggy back fashion as Tom planted like a sprinter and signaled for her to ignite. As soon as Tom saw the flames burst into life around her, He ran forward, hoping that Shaela would get the idea in time. The flames encompassed both of them as Tom ran into the wave as fast and as hard as he could, trying to keep Shaela on his back and safe at the same time.

The Bugrom forces reacted to a giant fireball running at them with a screeching hiss and a jump to avoid it, going off the sides of the bridge to either try to hang on or fall away. Nothing stood in Tom's way as he came at them, and if they were unlucky to try and stand before him, he knocked them hard away with a rushed backhand. Ryoko and Afera took full advantage of the dangling targets, Ryoko racing along the sides of the bridge and knocking the bugs loose physically, Afera creating a strong down draft that battered and ultimately ripped away the hangers on. With a fireball approaching the mainland that was beating back their warriors, the Bugrom disappeared back into the woods, disappearing from sight.

Tom slumped to the ground in a kneel. His arms were numb from beating back the bugs, but his back was worse for carrying someone on it as he did while trying to beat back the enemy. Shaela slid free from his back and watched as the last of the Bugrom disappeared into the trees.

"You turned us into a giant fireball." Shaela said in amazement. She had never tried something so reckless, but it had gotten the job done.

"It was a bit short notice, but yeah, you did turn us into a fireball." Tom's clothes felt singed, and his hair felt crisped. He stood straight holding his lower back as he watched the forest as well.

"Hail, Mah Alousch, Shaela." Nazak and party came trotting up from behind, bows held in hand for anything that may come at them while they moved. "It seems your plan had merit." He eyed both Tom and Shaela before eyeing the woods and their surroundings.

"It was half baked, but thankfully, it worked." Tom started walking back down the bridge, not bothering to watch his back. There were already enough eyes back there for him not to worry.

Saheef brushed by him, even pulling at Tom's arm roughly as he pulled and got behind him as Tom's ear picked the sound of a whine. It had hit Saheef before Tom registered it as the same sound he had heard last night, an arrow rushing from somewhere to him. Saheef fell back into Tom as Tom turned around, his eyes immediately picking out more arrows coming, and from the trees as well.

"Get Back!" Tom yelled and moved past Saheef who was dead before he hit the ground, the smell of flesh already eaten away by whatever poison coated the tips of these arrows. Tom snatched at the arrows and threw them away before they could hit anyone else, making sure to save everyone he could and already berating himself for being so lax.

Shaela hadn't moved as Tom had ordered, staying by his side and trying to find out where the arrows were coming at as well. Another set of arrows launched all at once, seven arrows arching through the air and heading toward Shaela in a flying wave of death. Shaela pointed to where the arrows had come from, calling to the trees to ignite in the hottest flames she could create before Tom blocked her vision. To his credit, he managed to stop three with his hands.

"Hlk!" Tom let slip with a sound of pain. Nazak and Malani had already pulled Saheef's body back out of range before Shaela had ignited the trees where the snipers had fired from, there were short cut off screams as the instant flames flash fried them where they hid, incinerating what was left of them to ashes.

Shaela caught Tom and with Ragland's help, they pulled Tom back to join Nazak and Malani who had already moved away from Saheef with wet eyes. Tom breathed blood from his nose and mouth, the pain rushing through his body was excruciating. He could feel his innards melting away into liquid as the poisons burned downward into his body. He couldn't talk, he could feel plenty, but talking was beyond him.

"He is dying." Ragland spoke what was obvious. Even Tom's miraculous healing powers couldn't cope with this toxin.

"We need to bleed him." Nazak said as he pulled out a wicked looking hunting knife.

"I'll do it." Shaela said and held out her hand for Nazak's blade. Nazak handed her the blade with a curious look but moved to Tom's other side as Shaela made an incision from his chest downward.

Tom felt his body open up from her precise cut. A whole new wave of pain erupted from him, through him, as Shaela and Nazak turned Tom over. He could feel what was left of his lungs hanging loosely in his rib cage, and fluids of all types flowing down from his body onto the concrete as Tom's eyes went spotty. The pain rushed away with a hissing sound as the toxins poured out of his body onto the stones below him.

Shaela and Nazak moved Tom with assistance from Ragland and Malani. They moved him carefully away from where they had spilt his blood and stayed out of the pool of deadly toxins that was beginning to eat into the stone the bridge was made out of. Laying Tom back down on his back, they removed what was left of the arrows and waited.

With the poisons removed from his body, his healing kicked back in with a passion as it rebuilt the damage the acids had done. Skin healed over within seconds and blood reformed back in his veins. Tom's eyes came back into focus and he coughed a few times as the taste of bile and blood mixed in his mouth. He felt like he was going to be sick on the spot, but too weak to care one way or the other.

"Saheef!" Tom rolled onto his side and tried to sit, but a hand from Nazak forestalled him.

"Do not try, Mah Alousch" Nazak looked toward Saheef's corpse. The chest was smoking badly now as whatever the arrows were coated in ate away the body. "Soon, there will be nothing left of his body at all."

Tom laid back weakly, tears coming to his eyes as he stared up into the sky. "I should have been able to save him." Tom spoke softly with regret.

Malani spoke for Tom as she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Saheef knew that saving you was more important. His decision to risk his life saved all of us as you had time to grab the rest of the fatal arrows."

"That isn't the point!" Tom felt such anger at his own lack of responsibility that he wasn't thinking straight. "I should of paid attention!"

Nazak knew nothing would assuage him, so he changed the subject. "I will go and bring in my people. Tonight, we will drink to life. Tomorrow, we will remember our duties more clearly. You will be there for the drinking." Gesturing for Malani and Shaela to help him, Nazak and Ragland headed toward the woods and down the beach.

With help, Malani and Shaela helped Tom to stand. Tom wept openly at his own failure, whether it was his fault or not. He vowed to do more, try harder to do what was necessary to prevent the death of anymore even though he knew in his mind it was already beyond him.

* * *

Jason still looked shaken up from where he sat, alcohol or no alcohol. Tom watched his friend closely since he had woken up. His friend said that he was sure he had died, that he had been pierced and that he was a ghost now. Tom had gotten at least the thought in his head that if he was really dead, why would he want to be here of all places. Ryoko hung from his arm, trying to be the one comfort and assurance that he would ever need, though it was obvious to Tom that this made him all the more uncomfortable.

Washu was even in attendance tonight, talking with the shamans of the Val Astanri. She seemed to be trying to fathom all of their cultures and secrets all at once by the way the faces of the shamans were, stone faced and protective. Still, undaunted by the resistance, Washu pressed onward to find out all that she could.

Shaela and Malani sat together, drinking from a gourd that Tom had never seen before. They looked pretty well drunk by the color in their cheeks and the way they slightly swayed even while sitting down on the ground. Nazak and Ragland was only a little behind them in terms of drunkenness, the flush of skin in their faces the telltale of inebriation.

Tom drank the last of whatever they had handed him, and put the cup down in front of him. No matter how hard he drank it, or how fast, he wasn't even feeling it. Tom guessed that was the curse of being able to heal from anything. He sat and watched the fires a little longer, wondering as to why everyone was trying to be happy when they had lost their lands, and now their warrior.

Nazak stood up and raised his hands for silence as a set on instrumentalists came out from the darkness and prepared them. Strings and drums, cymbals and wooden tubes were placed at hand for something that must have been planned.

"My people," Nazak began, gathering eyes to him, "We have lost much in the few days we have traveled." The sound of listening and of rustling was deep as Nazak continued. "We came far and we will go farther yet as we try to save what we can and begin again. We survive and we shall always survive. That is who we are."

A few nodded to this and Nazak continued. "Tonight, we pay tribute to our fallen friend, Saheef." Nazak raised his glass to the stars. "May your hunting be good, and your pleasures be many, Saheef." All raised their glass and said the name of the honored. "In remembrance for the fallen, Mak' Vralla shall begin."

The musicians began to play as the last word came from Nazak's mouth. He moved and sat back next to Ragland as a deep, heady rumbling came from the drums. Something primal, instinctual, animalistic, something that was so at one with life that you couldn't resist but move your body to it. The stringed instruments began next, adding to the feel of freedom, of being that the music invoked. The wooden instruments played low and to the back of the feel, not the primary part of the music, but the adding, the definition that brought out the feel.

Malani and a few other women stood, moving in a way that could only be suggested at as alluring. Tom had never seen anything that was more sexual and provocative, but right with what he was hearing. The music sung to his blood, pounded to his heartbeat, wrapped around his soul and caressed it as a lover would. He closed his eyes and felt it, not looking anymore with eyes, but with his soul.

For just a moment, he felt at peace with what he heard, being at one with everything. That peace was broken when he felt the other in him shift, coiling in a mockery of everything he was feeling. Tom went ridged at the feel of that thing in him, seeing not the music anymore, but at the thing that wanted to devour this vulnerability and utterly corrupt it. Tom opened his eyes to hopefully banish the thoughts that were being invoked in him, only to see something that stirred his body in other ways.

Shaela had stood and joined a few of the women as they danced and writhed around the fire. Her body swayed and her arms moved in such a way as to be intoxicating. She flowed from one step to the next in that rolling, moving motion of the music. Tom couldn't take his eyes away as he forgot for just a moment the thing in his mind.

Each woman went their way, one at a time, to a person as they danced, moving seductively around them as to be impossible to miss. Shaela stayed dancing around the fire for only a little longer till even she went, though she came to Tom. She was something ethereal, something only a dream could detail in the beauty she exuded. Tom's hand reached on it's own toward her and her own hand reached out for him.

The thing in his mind shifted again and he hesitated. It flashed into his vision thoughts of being with the fire priestess, of bedding her, of taking her in ways Tom was wanting right at this minute. Then it showed him repercussions of such desires, and what happened to those who bound themselves to people linked with The Armor of Darkness. The Armor went one more further than Tom wanted, taking her without her consent, raping her, killing her, defiling who she was all for his base lust.

Tom's hand fell away from Shaela's, a look of disappointment on her face. He stood, looking at her or through her, she wasn't sure, before he turned and walked out into the night. Shaela stopped dancing, not feeling the eyes of Nazak on her as she stared off to where Tom disappeared off to. She wrapped her arms around her and squeezed, feeling colder than she had ever felt before.

* * *

He sat in the princess' bedroom, against the far wall of the immaculate quarters. He had his orders and he had been warned about the punishment of not acceding to those orders. Sleep was for the innocent, and so the princess slept while the sinner remained ever vigilant. He had also been warned about making advances on a slumbering person and what would happen should it ever occur. One look from him however had cut off that admonishment before it was spoken.

The princess was cute, and in his view, way too weak to be anything but eye candy, something that was ogled at and not good for much more than that. He had returned here after the party, or in his case, he had returned when he didn't belong anymore. He couldn't grieve for someone he had never known, and he couldn't remember someone that had been a passing acquaintance. He didn't belong there anymore than he belonged in this room.

"You have strange tastes, Tok-Ran." For the third night in a row, Meris appeared from the shadows as if she had walked through a doorway. She carried herself carefully, but with enough forethought to make herself dangerous to anyone that thought otherwise. She had done nothing but sit and talk with him for the last two nights and it looked as if she was going to sit with him for a third.

"The fire wench was trying to entice you earlier." Tom didn't even glance her way when she had spoken. She often needled him with information she could only know by being there herself. "You were wise to turn her down."

"She was drunk and not thinking, like a little girl who wants something because it is there." Tom spoke softly, knowing what he said was truth, or hoping it was.

"Drunk' is not an excuse to make one so desirable." Meris made desirable sound like it was something dirty. Tom didn't press the issue and the topic was quickly changed. "You are upset about something." Meris raised her hand to Tom's face and he jerked away from it.

"I am who I am, and that's an end to it." Tom shifted slightly away from Meris only to have her grab hold of his shirt and yank him toward her

She stared angrily at Tom, nearly nose to nose with him. "You will not do that again." She hissed at him, a threat that wasn't concealed.

Tom pulled free from her slowly, showing that he had heard, but not moving back close to her again. "Don't you have something you have to kill?" Tom asked as he sat back and listened to the room noise. Meris shifted to his left and he could feel her brush up against his arm as she moved closer.

"Time is about all I have killed as of late." Meris didn't sound quite upset about that, but she didn't sound thrilled either. "Being La Kalas Sharantha, I am not held by my people's laws."

Tom looked at her, confused. "La Kallas Sharon-tha?" Meris turned toward him and looked at his face, studying him for a moment.

"La Kalas Sharantha." Meris said softly, as if hesitant herself. "It means 'Outcast People' in my language."

Tom watched her as he thought. To be outcast not only by your family but your people as well, that takes either some balls, or something really bad to get that kind of 'reward'. Meris leaned her head back and watched the room as well, expecting an attack to come from anywhere at any time. Tom closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, listening once more not to anything in particular.

"Why did you not bed the fire woman?" Meris looked at Tom, seeing if he was going to answer her this time or not.

Tom sighed once, dramatically. "I wanted to. I wanted to go some place with her and fuck her brains out." The thing in the back of his head shifted with laughter, vibrating its pleasure through Tom. "I will most likely never be worthy of bedding anyone, let alone be able to protect someone I love. For me, That is not good enough."

"Still," Meris kept going, seeing just where his anger limit was at, "You could have simply bedded her and left. That is not uncommon amongst your people."

"I…Will….Not!" Tom spaced each word deliberately. He had always believed that if you laid with someone, that you were going to commit to that person. "I am not some slut that will sleep with just anyone, and I don't appreciate hearing it."

Meris watched him as he tensed and relaxed reflexively all in a single motion. It was unconscious what he just did, but sign enough to show what his mindset was about this topic. She had found someone with integrity and a sense of balance, of commitment. She may yet be pleased with her choice of this one. Tom's eyes were closed for the time being so he didn't see what she did next, which was start to unlace the bindings on her jerkin.

The sound did unsettle him though as he shifted slightly with the incessant whispering of something rubbing together. When Meris sat on his lap did Tom finally open his eyes, and what he saw startled him. Meris had removed her jerkin and had laid it to the side by where she had sat previously, exposing her skin to the air and to the night. This close to her, he could see that her skin bristled with goose bumps and that she was breathing a bit heavily as she tried to keep her breathing calm.

Tom tried to fight her off him, but with a snatch of hair in her hand, she drubbed his head against the wall behind him. "I told you I would make you mine." Meris whispered to him as he gripped the back of his head. She reached under her and felt along his pants for the bindings to remove them, or at least open them up.

"What the hell do you think your doing?" Tom kept his voice to a low roar. He couldn't believe what was happening as he tried to prevent being undressed.

Meris ended any attempts at saving grace by cutting the straps free from his jerkin, then doing the same to his pants as she pulled open his shirt. "I told you, I would take you as my own. I'm just doing what I told you I would do." She reached to her own pants and slid the knotting free with a practiced grace.

"Here?" Tom was looking more and more shocked and down right embarrassed. "Now?"

"Where doesn't matter." Meris leaned in and kissed his lips softly but firmly, running her fingers along his chest and shoulders as she removed the shirt from him. "We may never have another chance to be together, so we should enjoy our time together as we can. No matter where or when."

Tom was slowly giving up. There wasn't much he could do unless he wanted the princess to wake up to see him nearly unclothed in the corner of her room. "What about her?" Tom's eyes darted to the bed and Meris sniffed.

"You're just going to have to be quiet then." She kissed him once more pressing more of her body close to his as she took what belonged to her.

She had wanted someone to share in her pain and her pleasures for awhile now, someone who could empathize with her thoughts and desires. Maybe this pale skin of a man would be enough for her to feel not so alone. Tom felt like crying, doing something like this and having nothing to give back to her in return. No assurances, no words of regret, he felt that if offered, he'd be backhanded for them. He wondered if this is what it was like to be married to someone who was your equal, the other part of you that you could never be. He hoped that he was wrong.

* * *

**Did anyone see that coming? If anyone did, then I must be getting predictable. Walking off from Shaela's advances is something I decided on, seeing as how Tom has been adamant about not being worthy of anyone's love. I guarantee nothing about people's hearts, and I am planning character death very soon.**

**Who do you think is going to be the victim? Maybe I'll let you know... T.T.F.N.**


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**I had to take some time away from posting or doing anything for a few days. .hack//G.U. came out on wednesday and I had the sudden urge to bust through the game as fast as I possibly could. Anyways, I have answered back to the few reviews I have received and taken note to the few things that have been said. There will be no skinned bared gratuitously this time just for those who are looking for a skin flick.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the right to use any and all characters from the El Hazard series, nor do I have the ownership rights to use any of the Tenchi series characters. I also am not, shall not, nor feel the need to promote any and all mentions to various video games in the above. I'm just stating the facts as they are.**

**I own Tom, Jason, Nazak, Malani, and the Armor of Darkness.**

**G.B.:** Today I would like to introduce to the staff of characters Sasami's boyfriend, Joshaldan.

**Joshaldan:** Nice to meet you. May the life bathe you and protect you.

**G.B.: **Um...Yeah. sweatdrop forms near his temple Anyways, would you like to say anything to the people out there reading this right now?

**Joshaldan: **If they're reading this, how can they hear me if I say anything?

**G.B.: **...

**Joshaldan: **Can we hurry this up? I have an Armor to hunt down.

**G.B.: **Can I take back what I said about introducing him and simply character kill him now?

**

* * *

**

Chapter 13

**Escape from the Saviors**

"It would appear as if the Juridians have finally arrived." Kagato stared out of the balcony terrace at the lancing energy that was destroying what was left of the bridge.

"They will be a problem for us if they decide to interfere with our battle." A blue skinned warrior uncrossed his arms as he joined Kagato at the terrace. His black skinned pants snug, but loose enough to allow for any type of lethal kick or weapon to appear as if it had materialized out of thin air. He held himself in a curled readiness all the time, as if he feared he would be attacked at any moment.

"The Juridians will be a problem only if we interfere with their search." A woman in black much like the blue skinned warrior lounged on the pillows that The King and Queen had sat upon not an hour ago. She couldn't have been more different from the blue skinned man as her skin was that of a coppery bronze color, her hair the brightest pink and framing her face. She was beauty that is rarely seen alive, as long as you didn't notice the two yellow antennae coming out above her eyebrows. "All they are interested in is The Armor of Darkness."

"Yes, the Armor." Kagato spoke softly as if to himself as he thought about the attack that had just occurred. It was unlike the Juridians to attack in such a way, they liked to make sure The Armor was sent back to limbo. Why make their presences known to The Armor then?

"Juridians or not, Rune Pronelius was not here in this town when we took it." The blue skinned warrior turned to look at Kagato, his gray eyes looking vindictive and cold as they stared at him. "She must be found before she can rally the surviving pale skins together."

"Are we concerned, Galus?" The bronze skinned woman cooed softly as she pulled something loose with a meaty wrench. A woman's hand came into sight from Kagato and the blue skinned man's sight as she brought it to her lips and took a bite out of the flesh. "Even if she does rally those ragamuffins together, it won't be enough to stop my people." She looked at the hand in her possession and offered it to the two men. "Snack?"

"Vrash Puljani!" Galus spit toward the bronze woman.

"Make sure they don't encounter anymore help, Diva." Kagato flat out ignored the offered 'snack'. "My Lady wants her in one of two ways, dead, or powerless."

"Of course, Kagato." Diva ripped off another section of flesh, the pinkie finger coming free with it. "It shall be as Lady Tokimi wishes."

"I have a special task for you, Galus." Galus brought his eyes around to look Kagato in his luminescent eyes. He hated this man because of his power, but he was wise enough not to test his patience. "I want your men to find me the possessor of The Armor. We're going to help the Juridians with their duty."

-

Consciousness came back slowly for the fire priestess. She hurt everywhere, and a few places were numb from either the cold, or from blood loss. She felt like she was a battered, broken toy, and she wanted to sleep. The hand that was changing the damp rag on her head brought her around quickly, thought with an increase in pain.

Tom sat next to her, a small fire going nearby giving heat to the small cave they were situated in. He was grumbling quietly as he tried to manage a damp cloth onto Shaela's forehead with his left hand, his right held protectively to his body. His entire right side looked to have been broken and the sweat on his forehead didn't look like it was in strain.

"What happened?" Shaela tried to sit up and felt pain lance up and down her body. Her legs wouldn't respond, but she could at least feel her toes wriggle in her boots.

"We were on the bridge, remember?" Tom sounded parched and weak. He wobbled slightly as he scooted back from Shaela. "It was destroyed while we were on it."

"The bridge?" Shaela was having trouble replaying her memories as her sight was going in and out with a sickening slow flicker.

"Easy, don't try to move too much." Tom took her hand in his and squeezed it lightly as he stopped her from removing the compress. "You took a blow to the head. It might be awhile before you get your faculties totally under control again."

Shaela felt totally weak and hungry, yet she didn't think she could eat anything either. Her head spun on a pinwheel and her body ached all over. "Where are we?"

"Down river somewhere, I think." Tom looked around at their surroundings, which consisted of a cave and a few rocks and some fish. "We got swept a good ways down river before the current finally calmed down enough to do more than just float. Hopefully, I can keep us fed till someone finds us."

Shaela tried moving again, this time slower, vertigo wanting to pull her down back into unconsciousness. She sat weakly, looking around at her surroundings as well. The place was at least dry, and the only obvious entrance in and out involved slipping out through the small pool of water that apparently led back out into the river beyond. A few spots where light could be seen coming down from showed the only other ways out, and they were all too small for a person to get through.

"How are you?" Shaela looked over at Tom and tried reaching over to him, but he pulled away from her hand.

"I'll live. I always do." Tom slumped back against the rock wall behind himself, wincing as his shoulder rubbed raw against the wall behind himself. "You should be worrying about yourself, Priestess. I can't be killed."

Shaela let him be, wondering if he was really as good as he said he was. She checked herself closely, feeling first for her fire gauntlet, and then checking the rest of her body. A few minor bumps and bruises, a twisted ankle, and a few new scars to add to her collection of battle wounds, but nothing too serious. She should feel lucky for coming out as light as she did, but it still didn't feel like it was all real. She looked over at Tom, this time trying to see how bad he was.

He looked mangled, if someone could be hurt as he was. His right arm didn't look natural and she was surprised the bone wasn't sticking out in several places on him. Lacerations and burns abounded on his body, his clothing only looking like wasn't hanging off of him. He had lost his boots somewhere, most likely in the river as they had been swept downstream. He was starting to get a good sized bruise near his temple on the side of his head, the flesh raising and coloring a dark purple.

Even as she looked at him, her own hurts seemed to be going away. She could move better, faster, without being so sick to her stomach. Her legs even started to feel better, less sore. She knew what was happening when the sound of a bone snapping in two doubled Tom over on himself.

"Tom!" She reached over to him, grabbing hold of his shoulders. "Tom, Stop it! You're killing yourself!"

Tom gasped in pain, tears in his eyes as new scars began to open up around his eyes and cheeks. "Told you." Tom managed to mumble as swelling started to puff his eyes closed. "I can't die." Tom leaned back into the wall, his right arm looking even worse than before.

Shaela wasn't sure if Tom was awake or not anymore. His breathing started going ragged and he shivered all over, the pain probably too much for him to keep awake through. Shaela wished Miz was here to at least alleviate some of the pain, but wishing for something rarely ever got you anything. The only thing she could do was watch for his health to suddenly drop, and try to keep him alive for his body to start rehealing.

-

"We're going to go meet with the Juridians." Rune announced to Nazak and the rest of the outworlders. The Priestesses Miz and Afera were still out looking for their lost Sister, and refused to go any further than eyesight away from the river.

"They're not going to help us, princess." Washu couldn't tell them enough times that this wasn't going to work out the way rune thought it would, but obviously, her input was less than nothing.

"We can be there within hours if we take the airship, princess." The captain of the airship put in his advice, offering what help he could to his Lady.

"Make preparations then," Princess Rune announced, "We head for the arrival point of the Juridians."

The crew began moving toward making preparations to launch as Princess Rune and Lans turned back into the cabin of the ship. Washu sighed deeply and shook her head, knowing that they were going on a fruitless mission. She turned away from the command deck and made her way down the gangplank to the ground below. Jason and Ryoko were waiting nearby, looking expectantly to Washu.

"Well, at least you tried." Ryoko tried to sound upset at the failure, but believed that they were better off without the princess and her entourage.

"I just wish we had more time." Washu looked disheartened. Jason wondered why she had been so adamant about not meeting these so called 'Juridians' but was more concerned with what the priestesses were going to come back with.

As if thinking of the priestesses were a summons, Afera flew in between the limbs of the trees to keep herself obscure from the ground, whereas Miz floated up on the very surface of the water. Both didn't look like they had very good news.

"No luck, huh?" It was to be expected. Tom wouldn't have stayed out in the open for anyone to find them, and if Shaela really was with him, keeping hidden was definitely a good thing.

"At least we didn't find signs of a scuffle or anything that would show that they had been attacked." Miz wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as she looked off back toward the fallen city. "Who would have ever dreamed that Floreshtica would fall so easily?"

"Try not to think about dreams so much." Washu activated her illusionary computer with a mental command, beginning to search in her own way for the elusive earther. "Any escape can be turned into the enemy's advantage if they can find the entrance."

"So what now?" Afera truly looked worried, not something she would admit to.

"The Princess wants to meet the envoys from Jurai when they get here." Washu made her thoughts known in the way she spoke about the Juridians. "I think she doesn't know what she's getting herself into."

"Meaning?" Miz looked at Washu with a critical stare.

"Meaning, if the Juridians think that you've been in contact with The Armor, they euthanize you." Jason's head snapped up as he stared at Washu, but the priestesses looked at each other.

"How soon will the Juridians be able to make it to the surface?" Miz asked as she turned her eyes skyward.

"Better yet, how many Juridians will there be?" Afera was looking just as hard at Washu as her screen.

"Well, the last time I ever heard of the Juridians even heading out on a Hunt like this, they sent somewhere around 5 families." When everyone started to look a little less panicky, Washu added, "That's about 500 Juridians."

"That's a lot of people to fight, Washu." Jason said slowly, wondering just how powerful these Juridians were if they fought with overwhelming numbers like that.

"They didn't send them all to one planet otherwise, they wouldn't worry so badly about one person, no matter if he had full control of The Armor or not." Washu's sensors began locking in on heat signatures out in the woods that could be near human size and some along the river as well. 'Looks like they weren't alone out here after all' she thought as she turned her attention back to Jason so he understood what she was saying. "They send the families out away from the main planet in every direction in many different ships. This group of family probably consists of 5 veterans and 20 'children'."

Nazak jogged over to Washu's little group followed closely by Malani. Everyone's attention came around to them as they neared, wondering why the desert tribesmen would bother with them at all. "There were signs of life south of here. Reports from my scouts say that it looks like two people came in to shore for a brief moment, then went back out into the river."

"Then they went farther than we thought." Washu widened the area to be scanned to it's maximum, and narrowed the river for the start of the scanning sensors.

"We're coming with you." Malani bounced on the pads of her feet as she spoke, wanting to be away from here and soon. "We have better hunting skills than the priestesses."

Washu nodded. "We need to go now then, before the Juridians make it planetside. Inform whoever you need to that we're leaving now, and to keep wary of the Juridians. They're Zealots when it comes to the hunt, and anyone who has been around Tom is tainted as far as they're concerned."

Nazak nodded then moved back toward the camps, already calling for Ragland and a few others. Washu hoped that the Juridians hadn't made it to the surface yet, or this was going to get tricky very quickly.

-

She had a headache. She always had a headache when waking up from cold sleep. Something about a person's body sleeping for longer than what was normal did terrible things to her head. She sat up slowly, the feel of the chill confines the cryogenics capsule gave her not making her head feel any better.

"Come on, Ayeka. Rise and Shine!" Her mother's sing song voice rang in her ears, which didn't do anything for her head.

Groaning softly, she pulled herself up and out of the capsule, standing on her own two feet once again on the wooden floor of the ship. She could feel the life of the ship course through her body just by the simple touch, washing away her fear and the feel of the taint that was outside of the ship. It was most definitely here, the feel of darkness strong enough to feel like swimming in a never ending abyss. She swallowed slowly, opening her eyes to look around her.

It was all there, the wooden floors and the foliage hanging from the ceiling, the lights that were never seen no matter how hard you looked, and the feel of health all around her. She always hated waking to the feel of filth that The Armor exuded. It was like being thrown into a raging river with ice caps and told to swim to the other side when you couldn't see it through the mists. She would be glad to be heading home from this hunt, the sooner the better.

"Is that it?" Sasami came up next to her sister and looked around as if she could really see the enemy. "Is that The Armor?"

"Get a good feel of it, Sasami." Ayeka closed her eyes and breathed in slowly, letting her Inner Light flow out toward the darkness. "That is The Armor of Darkness."

"A repulsive and cursed thing if ever there was one." A graying bearded man came from their left out of an open doorway. His robes were plain, but the force of will the man had was awe inspiring. His eyes rippled across a range of colors from the power he held contained in his form, and it was a wonder why they weren't simply smothered by such power. "Your mothers shouldn't have brought you this time."

"Father, it is our duty and our namesake to hunt down The Armor of Darkness." Ayeka turned to face her father, yet her tone was one of respect. You didn't live long hunting The Armor, but he had survived 30 fights to date.

"Still, the thought that both of my daughters are to fight this time, it makes a father worried." He came over to them and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "Still, I believe you will both make me proud."

"Don't worry so much, father." Sasami put on her best face for him. "I and Ayeka will kick that Armor of Darkness creep so hard that he'll wish he never showed his face."

"Lord Katsuhiko," a young faced Juridian popped his head around the doorway, looking for someone, "You have an incoming transmission from a Lord Kagato, My Lord."

Grimacing, the elder Juridian turned from his daughters. "I'm afraid this is important. Get prepared, we leave soon." With a mutter acquiescent, their father left the room.

The young faced Juridian came in as Katsuhiko left, looking at the man's back as he walked into the room. "Wow, a call from The Lord Kagato. I didn't think your father had those kinds of connections."

For an annoying twit, Joshaldan was an accomplished warrior. His hair was kept long around his head except over his face, and lavender to boot. He wore a jerkin and brown trousers that were baggy through the legs, and from the light above he had gotten hold of some outdated cape that he wore all the time. His eyes looked like he was prepared to prank on someone at a moment's notice, and his skills at keeping secrets was legendary even to his peers.

"Our fathers 'connections' are none of your concern, Joshaldan." Ayeka crossed her arms in front of her and eyed the boy with an unhappy look. Sasami looked at him in the opposite, as her eyes almost went glassy and her face reddened.

Joshaldan placed his hands behind his head as he stared at the ceiling and thought. "If Lord Kagato is calling, does that mean that the other ships are on their way already?"

"Whether or not they are on their way, we are here now and we must take care of the problem at hand." Ayeka nodded sagely as she pronounced the end of the discussion.

"There you go again, being Ms. Righteous." Joshaldan looked over at Ayeka with an unconcerned look. "Keep that up and no one will want to go out with you."

Ayeka growled in her throat as she glared hate at Joshaldan. Joshaldan looked like he wanted her t say it so they could get into another of their yelling matches which had been famous back in their classes on Jurai. Sasami looked worriedly between Joshaldan and Ayeka, not sure on whose side she should be taking. The matter was taken care of when her father's voice floated to the ship's passengers from Katsuhiko.

"My friends and family, we have a problem." His voice was calm and composed, but when problems arose on hunts, it wasn't ever a good thing.

-

Night had fallen, and the cave was getting colder. They had run out of dry firewood some time ago, and heating the rocks around them wasn't a good idea. Tom's healing hadn't started up as normally it would of, which led Shaela to believe that for every time he used that dark armor, his healing went into some kind of shock and took days to recover from. She watched over him as best as she could, but in all honesty, there wasn't much she could do for him.

He lay awake, staring at the few dots of light that the stars made as could be seen from the small holes in the ceiling. His breathing was short and painful to listen to, his body had absorbed every last hurt that she had taken. The few fish they had left wouldn't stay good to eat for much longer, so Shaela had cooked them and then laid them to the side for later eating, cooked food lasting a bit longer than raw food would have.

"H-how are y-you d-doing?" Tom asked to Shaela, his teeth chattering around the few words he spoke. Mist could be seen above his lips, and the color was turning a frightful blue.

"Sshhh…" Shaela came closer to him, sitting down close to him. "You have to try and conserve body heat." She placed a finger to his lips and he closed his eyes as he sighed, then winced as his lips growled in pain.

"I-I know t-that." Tom looked up at her, trying to mask the pain he was feeling from his eyes. "I asked h-how y-you w-w-were."

Shaela brushed his cheek softly. "I'm a whole lot better than you are." Shaela whispered to him. She was getting more and more concerned for his health. She was pretty sure that if he were to pass away before his healing could go to work, he would truly die. If the temperature dropped anymore, he could very well freeze to death, or shiver something loose as bad as his trembling was getting.

Tom smiled as he closed his eyes and breathed slowly outward. "T-the cold r-really isn't all that b-bad." Tom's shivering was starting to come less and less as his voice got weaker and weaker. "You hardly notice it after awhile."

His body relaxed, or more like it went totally limp under her hand. The slight spasm of a shiver rippled once or twice from time to time, but he didn't whimper or gasp when something hurt. Shaela had never seen hypothermia before, but watching Tom go as limp as he did made her very worried.

"Tom." She shook his shoulder and he barely mumbled. "Tom!" She shook him harder, calling his name nearly at a yell and still he didn't respond. "Tom, please wake up." Shaela got down next to him, whispering into his ear, not knowing what to do.

"Let me sleep." Tom muttered slowly, a slight slur on the edge of his words. "It hurts and I'm tired. Just let me sleep."

"Tom, you can't fall asleep. Wake up." Shaela sat back and shook both of his shoulders, making Tom grit his teeth in pain.

"Ouch, let go already!" Tom hissed as lightning danced across the backs of his eyelids from his shoulder.

Shaela let go of him easily, laying him back down on the ground. His shivering was starting to come back as he started to come around again. "Don't do that again." Shaela admonished him, though it was half heartedly spoken.

"I'm sorry." Tom eased himself up to a sitting position. "It just felt so good to slip off like that. I'm just so tired." He leaned against the wall gently, looking for a comfortable spot. "I really do need to rest, but if I fall asleep, I can't be this cold, Shaela. My body may not wake from that."

"What can I do?" Shaela took his hand in hers, and she could feel the cold from him. Looking through her element, she could see where his body was leaving large heat signatures in the air as it lost precious heat. His internal fires were literally escaping from his body.

Crooking his good leg so that it bent under his bad one, he pulled Shaela gently onto his makeshift lap. "Don't move too much, and keep the heat coming." Tom spoke next to her ear, his voice straining to keep a curse held back from her.

He was able to get his left arm around her and placed in flat to her stomach. She leaned back against him, fearing she was doing more damage to him than she could imagine. Tom sighed softly once, a slow breath that tickled against the back of her ear and her neck, making her jump slightly. Tom grit his teeth and growled once, easing Shaela back down against him and tried not to do something careless like that again.

Shaela didn't mind him like this. It was almost comforting to be held like he was holding her, somehow good. She could feel his body already warming up against her as a few minutes passed, then longer as he breathed slowly. She could feel his body relaxing behind her, and the pain that he had been feeling all day even began to subside a bit as he didn't think about it so much.

"Tom?" Shaela spoke his name, wondering why she felt awkward to be doing something so simple. "Why did you refuse to dance with me that night?"

"What?" It sounded like he was nearly asleep, though not the kind that was so hard to wake up from.

"Why didn't you dance with me the night that we were remembering Saheef?" She had wondered why he had simply left. Wasn't she pretty enough? Or was it because she was too violent?

Tom was quiet for a moment. "You don't want to be with me, Shaela." He sounded old, not aged old, but an old that went beyond meaning. It was like he had given up on something important. "I'm someone that isn't worthy of being with a woman like you."

"I can make that decision for myself." Shaela spoke hotly, making her opinion known.

"I made the decision for myself that I would not burden a woman with what I am." Tom sounded like he was going to cry, and Shaela listened closely to what he said next. "Do you know what I could offer anyone? A quick and merciful death. I am going to kill everything, Shaela. I can't be saved from that fate."

"Do you know that for certain?" Shaela wanted him to stop this line of talk, but he spoke up on her heels.

"Yes, I do know for certain." Tom shivered once under her as he breathed slowly. "I can feel it in the back of my mind, something base and lustful for pain and destruction. Even now, it whispers in the back of my head for me to do things to you that are indecent, even sinful." Tom shuddered once then continued in a whisper. "I want to do those things, like it tells me to."

"Then why haven't you?" Shaela didn't know what to do, her skin was crawling in disgust, yet she didn't feel hatred for him.

"I cannot." Tom stopped briefly, correcting himself, "I will not ever let those things happen." Tom felt like he was locking every muscle up underneath her and she turned to look into his face. He looked like he was in a battle for his soul, one that he would not give up easily. "I am not that thing, no matter how much a part of me it is. I will never be that beast."

Shaela could only look at his eyes, so full of pain and frustration, but also tinted with fear. His eye color flickered from gray to hazel to greenish blue and back to gray on an endless circuit. What he was going through, she couldn't imagine. He was meant to destroy everything as the legends said he would eventually do, but for tonight he was human. Shaela laid her head on his shoulder and closed her own eyes, taking from him a sense of safety for the gift of her warmth.

-

Taking the airship from the small camp of survivors, the princess and Lans had arrived at a tree that could be seen for miles around, for this was no ordinary tree. The Juridians long ago made clear to the people here that this tree was a lost ship that had crash landed on their planet when it had fallen from the sky. It was a sacred tree to them and that should they ever need to return, they would come here first. Hopefully, they would hold true to what they had said.

For one day, they waited, praying that the fates would be merciful and send them divine help from above and for one day, they went unanswered. It was early on the second day that the Juridians arrived as light poured down from a cloudy sky, rays of luminance landing upon the branches till the tree was alive with the light. All watched in wonder as the lights began to gather together on separate branches, pulling together till humanoid forms could be seen inside the lights. With little popping flashes all across the branches, the Juridians arrived.

The eldest looking Juridian had come into existence down by the roots of the tree. He was dressed in earthy tones and colors, but in robes far finer than anything that rune had ever seen or worn. Both his hair and beard were long and intertwined on themselves, looking like vines braided in to become part of the man. He held no weapon, indeed, there was no place to carry anything concealed on him as he walked smoothly with a calm step toward the awaiting ensemble of people.

"Greetings." The elderly Juridian spoke. "I am Katsuhiko Jurai, hunter of that which is death to all things." He didn't bow and he looked strangely at the few guardsmen who saluted him. "I would like to talk to the person who possesses the land of this tree. We must speak with them so that I may inform them that we wish to stay here for a while."

Rune stepped forward slowly, her guards closing ranks toward her, willing to throw themselves before her to protect her even from these people. "My name is Rune Pronelius, and I am the possessor of these lands till a new monarch can be decided."

Katsuhiko looked questioningly at the young lady who could not have been more than 20 on this planet, yet she had the bearing of power and the weight of sadness. Nodding, he proceeded to speak. "As I have spoken of, I would like your permission for my people to stay here at this ship while we hunt for what we seek."

Rune nodded. "You seek The Armor of Darkness. We have encountered it a few times already."

Katsuhiko reached out reflexively through the part of him that was worth protecting, that bright, wonderful thing that sang through all life. He reached through that power and toward the princess and her entourage. He could sense the life force in each of them, their souls shining like small stars held in flesh bonds. But there was a shadow that covered those lights, to a degree, a filth that roiled and spun slowly across their beings like an abomination.

"I must warn you that if you try to deceive any of us, it is an admission that you work for The Lady of The Dark." Katsuhiko didn't trust these people any further than he could throw these people, and with the strength that came from channeling The Light, he could throw a mountain a mile or two unaided. "Being in contact with The Armor, even if it wasn't manifested, makes you susceptible to its coercive force. Are you still willing to put your life on what you say?"

Rune looked Katsuhiko in the eye as she spoke. "If it means I may gain your help in regaining my people's lives, I would gladly give up everything to do that."

-

Ayeka had been watching the talking down below from where she stood, but there was something itching in her mind. There was something out there that called to her, something that spoke to her from wherever it hid. Sasami floated down from an overhead limb, looking at her sister as Ayeka's eyes roamed the land somewhere to the south and west of them. She opened herself up to The Light, and then focused again on listening to the calling as she searched.

It was out there, clearer now. A feeling of loneliness and pain was out there, somewhere near the river. She remembered that someone she had spent time with in the dream realm had felt like this before, but she hadn't seen them for a very long time. It was almost like he was out there, hurting and alone, waiting.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned her head to see her father looking down at her, concerned. "Ayeka, are you alright?"

"There's someone over there…" Ayeka pointed back off towards the river, back in the general direction. "I was having a living dream when someone came into it and helped Sasami and I. I made a connection with them."

Katsuhiko looked toward the river with a concerned look. The Armor here, the people wanting their help to remove not only The Armor but the forces about to destroy them, and now this person that his daughter had made a connection with. Too many coincidences, or was it The Light shining them a path? "My friends and family, the Hunt begins." All the Juridians had mixed emotions, but all looked ready to do what must be done. "Two novices to every one Veteran. All except for Ayeka, Sasami, and Joshaldan."

Pairing up as soon as soon as Katsuhiko named the three who would not be going with an elder, the Juridians all called to their inner Light, instantly changing into their battle armors and flashing off in every direction they could go. Joshaldan, Sasami, and Ayeka stood before Katsuhiko as they watched the rest of their friends fly off into the skies above.

"This is totally not fair." Joshaldan voiced his thoughts. "I came to be a part of the hunt, not to sit here on guard duty."

"You will be on the hunt, but I want you to go with my daughters and go look for this person she says is out there." Katsuhiko gave Ayeka a warm, fatherly smile as she hugged her father appreciatively. "If you run into any trouble out there, call for help immediately. I will remain here and keep a 'feel' on everyone with Ryuhou." Katsuhiko patted the trunk of the tree with his hand, looking fondly at the weathered wood.

"Hurry, Ayeka!" Sasami changed into her battle garb in a bright flash, looking like a luminescent ballerina with a wand, her clothes now brilliant white like new fallen snow.

Joshaldan changed into his battle armor which was nothing more than a color change for him, except that around his eyes, the marks of lineage formed on his face. Each Juridian had the marks of lineage of their family around their eyes, sometimes two different marks if the family had been small and had to go outside of its people to keep alive. Small dots lined the bottom of his eyes as they trailed upward and back toward his temples, giving the look of universes above a comets trail.

Ayeka changed into her battle garb simply by giving herself up to the Light within herself. Her robes flashed away to be replaced by a martial arts gi. White clothing cinched off at the elbows and wrists kept the clothing from flapping around, while anklets kept her leggings from doing the same. She focused on the feel of the emotions coming to her, the connection as weak as it had ever been since they had not seen each other last. Lifting herself with the power of Light, she flew toward the general feel of the man.

-

"Awake, Human!" The Armor screamed in his head, bringing Tom totally awake with a sharp pain between his eyes. Pain washed over Tom with its loving embrace as his wounded body healed itself ever so slowly. He had started healing about an hour ago, though it wasn't nearly as fast as what it had been before. Still, it was so much better to have a body that didn't hurt nearly as bad as what he must have been like before.

He didn't remember much of the pain he had felt, or for that fact, a whole lot of anything. He was vaguely aware that he and Shaela had been talking before he had passed out, and that talking to her had been worse than the pain in his body. He flexed his fingers slowly, feeling the fabric that Shaela was wearing underneath his hand. She had fallen to sleep on him, and thanks to the heat either from her body or from her element, his muscles felt totally relaxed and loose.

"Fool of a mortal!" The Armor in his head was ranting again, this time sounding urgent. "We must flee! Forget the woman and escape while we can!"

This was unusual. The Armor was scared of something, something that was obviously heading this direction. What could be coming towards them that would scare the Armor so? "We're not going anywhere in the condition I'm in. I'm not well enough to flee from anything." Tom thought in his head to The Armor, then grit his teeth in pain as an electrical snap danced through his body.

His body healed almost at once, and so fast that it was more shock than pain he was feeling. His body didn't even ache as it would if he had healed naturally, just throbbed with a life force that was not his own. He felt like he could do anything, it pulsed and swelled in him like a great sea with no borders, no restraints. Closing his eyes, he thought he could almost hear the power swishing softly like the wind, and yet roaring like a great cataclysm.

"Now flee fleshling!" The Armor's voice seemed to rise up out of the power, fading and roaring like the sound he almost could hear.

The Armor had never run from anything before, why did it want him to run now? The first thing to spring to mind was that it was scared, and if it was scared, then there was good reason for him to be scared. There was something out there, coming ever closer to where they were hid, somewhere above them. Tom sat back and waited, relaxing underneath Shaela as she shifted on him in response to whatever she was dreaming.

"Hurry, Fool!" The Armor howled in his mind, a wind that would scour away his sanity.

"Shut up and think." Tom thought back at The Armor. "If we were to flee now, they'd see us. It would be best if we simply hid from them, and the best way to do that, is make like we never even existed." The Armor roiled dissatisfaction in his mind, and fear. "If you're that scared, go hide somewhere in my mind, somewhere deep where no one will find you. I will call you when the scary people are gone."

The Armor snarled once, and fled into Tom's mind somewhere back near his emotions. There was a crawling itch near that area of his mind, and he shivered once as it felt like the thing that was The Armor melted away into nothingness. It disturbed him slightly how easily The Armor seemed to dissolve into him every time it disappeared like it did, but for the time being, he had bigger concerns.

He closed his eyes to better focus, blocking out his surroundings, then listened very closely, reaching out with every sense he had at his disposal to find what it was. There was something out there; it was searching for someone, as if they knew there was someone out here to answer it. Tom thought of a lake, keeping his calm like the surface before a storm, and listened carefully for anything that would identify what it was.

He felt more than saw something flash past overhead, something that was so right with the world around him as to make himself feel like he was the opposite. Something that was everything that perfection could be rushing past as it headed someplace else. A second raced by just as well, this time with the presence of calm control balanced with force, something that was not so much primal energy, but something that could only be explained as a male version of nature. The feel of those two 'perfections' rushing overhead made Tom think about Ayeka, how she was calm perfection with everything around her simply because she fit in with everything like she was the completion of whatever she was near.

Thinking the name brought a feel to him of her, he felt a third 'perfection' coming up from behind him, and he could hear something coming from that 'perfection. It called to him, it was looking for him, and with realization bringing his eyes open, his own mind called out a name. "Ayeka?" he thought to himself, and he could feel the connection shake with vibrations as the name swept away behind him toward her.

A light swooped past once and within moments returned back over top of him. He could see it through the roots of whatever thing was above them, a glowing, floating girl peering down through the dirt and the roots looking for the person whom had called to her. Tom reached his left hand up toward the light, straining to reach out and touch her. "Ayeka?" his lips betrayed him as he called her name and the eyes seemed to lock onto the spot where he existed.

"Hang on, friend. I will ask the tree for assistance." It was her, the cool certainty in her voice, the timbre as she spoke, and her eyes. Those soft pink eyes looking down at him, the eyes he had hoped would never look at him again and a voice as soft and gentle as a first kiss in the warm summer rain.

Tom tore his eyes away from her, looking down at Shaela. He had to get his mind off of Ayeka or he would never get away from her, and for them to be apart was the best thing possible. "Shaela, wake up, Shaela." Tom shook Shaela gently in his arms, arousing a soft sigh and a stretch that felt deliciously good from where he sat at.

"What's going on?" Shaela didn't attempt to stand up, just laid on top of him as she looked back at Tom's face.

"We've been located," Tom spoke, and Shaela looked up at the roof covered with roots, "By Juridians."

Shaela looked at Tom with a shocked look on her face, then stood quickly. Even as she moved, the sound of creaking began above them as the roots of trees began to undulate. They moved like giant snakes as they shifted, creating a large enough hole for a person to climb through, then with a groaning sound, they came once more to a stop. Tom stood up slowly and offered for Shaela to go first, which she took as she was boosted by Tom's hands and shimmied up the opening quickly. Tom merely judged the best angle as he gazed up then jumped as he used his enhanced speed to give him the extra lift he'd need.

He brushed the top of the hole with his foot, catching himself off balance as he tried to land and causing himself to fall forward into someone. He grabbed and spun, rolling to his right and landing with a grunt on the ground as his head bounced off the hard dirt. His eyes watered and his ears rang, but at least whomever he had taken with him hadn't been hurt so it was a small sacrifice. He felt her in his mind more strongly as the bond Ayeka had tied to him was reinforced then a gentle hand was placed to his head that was very soft.

"Are you alright?" Tom felt like he was floating and sinking at the same time. Her breath was close to his face, why hadn't he smelled her at that close a range?

His eyes focused on reflex and he stared up at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She smiled down at him, brushing at his head and back along the top of his ear as she felt for the hurt he had incurred, even though he didn't feel it anymore. She barely weighed anything, there was no way she could avoid being on top of him or taking some of her weight off of him. She had to be a dream, even though he knew she wasn't.

"Excuse me?" Shaela's voice brought both of them around, looking back toward the fire priestess who looked none to happy. "Should I avert my eyes or something?"

Tom thought she looked absolutely pissed and wondered why she would feel like that. Ayeka climbed off of Tom and his body ached when she removed herself. He stood slowly, not trusting the healing that The Armor had done to his body. He felt around and checked every joint and movement, making sure that everything was as it should be.

"I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to introduce myself." Ayeka bowed serenely to Shaela. "I am Ayeka Jurai, Hunter of The Armor."

Shaela glanced over at Tom while Ayeka was still bowed at the mention of Hunter. "I am Shaela Shaela, of the Desert tribes and fire priestess of Mt. Muldoon." Ayeka stood back up, not perceiving the feel of wariness coming off the fire priestess, or just not concerned about such feelings.

"It was lucky of you to find Tom. We might not have found you at all." Ayeka smiled over at Tom, making him blush slightly, and giving Shaela an even sulkier look. "It was probably a good idea that I kept even a slight link with him, or we would have never found either of you."

"Ayeka!" Sasami and Joshaldan came flying back from wherever they had flown of to, a smile on Sasami's face and a glower on Joshaldan's. "You found them. Now we can go back to father."

"Maybe now we can start our own hunt." Joshaldan glared at Tom, but eyed Shaela if not directly.

"I will take them back to where they want to go. You can go ahead, Sasami." Ayeka turned to look back at Tom, and nearly screamed in shock as his arm whipped past her face on her left side, hitting something behind her with a tremendous force. There was a wet sound as it hit the ground and from all around them, the forms of blue skinned warriors started to come into existence.

Tom turned slowly in spot looking for a leader; one of the mask wearing ones called Mor-Deth. "You are the one named Tom Steele of Earth." A warrior pointed at Tom as he spoke. Tom eyed the one that spoke, marking him as the leader.

"You've chosen a really bad time to try and fight me." Tom crouched in place, preparing to leap to everyone's defense at a moment's notice.

"We have been ordered by Lord Kagato to make sure that you give him what he wants." Ayeka and her two companions had turned to face the blue skinned warriors, giving Shaela time to turn and place her gauntlet on her hand as they prepared to fight. Many more blue skinned warriors sprung to life as they watched, ringing them deep in warriors. They numbered total in excess of 50 people. Someone was finally taking him seriously.

"There are four people in the trees, though I can't see them." Joshaldan was looking at four trees in particular, as if he really could see them.

"There's only one on the ground. The rest of them aren't really there." Sasami was looking over toward Shaela's left, peering at a cluster of warriors.

"Joshaldan, Sasami. Teach the two in the trees what forces of nature the trees can be." Ayeka formed a staff of light from her hands, the light gathering together to become a physical object. "I will take the one on the ground."

"Hand over The Armor of…" Tom was gone in an instant, causing the illusions to waver as they tried to lock on him.

Joshaldan and Sasami acted as if it were a sign, reaching up to the trees and calling to them with their gift. The trees began to bend and move, as a tree couldn't bend naturally, gaining a life of their own as the branches bent in on themselves and picked at the air in certain spots. From those four spots appeared four shadow warriors all wearing the masks of Mor-Deth. On the ground, a fifth appeared, giving up any chance of stealth as they took aim with a bow and prepared to fire. Shaela beat Ayeka to the man by calling on her own talent, igniting the wood in their hand and causing them to throw down the weapon.

The staff caught the man in the head, a blow that knocked him off his feet as it buckled his legs and he collapsed. Sighing, Ayeka turned back to look at the little group, the weapon of light fading away into nothingness. She looked around once at the party, and then asked the obvious question.

"Where did Tom go to?" Everyone began to look around again, the trees still holding the caught shadowen warriors.

There was a sound like screeching and everyone came around to face it as a high pitched shriek pierced the air and trailed away. Tom came back from that direction, covered in the blood of Bugrom. He looked a little haggard, but he was moving well enough. "It's not uncommon to find the two of them together. Most likely their rides, but they're just as lethal."

"You may have caught us, but there will be more." One of the captured warriors spat down from his containment. He reached to his belt and produced a dagger from it.

"What do you intend to do with that? You'll never cut yourself free." Sasami put her hands to her hips and looked skeptically up at the warrior who had spoken.

He didn't speak as he moved his arms close to his body, piercing his chest with the dagger. The wound was nowhere near fatal as the blade was not long enough, but Tom knew what was about to happen next. Within a few moments, the sound of hissing elicited from four different bodies and the smell of death came close on its heels. Instead of being captive, they had opted for suicide. Tom could understand that, if not envy them for their conviction.

Ayeka gestured, and the bodies fell from the trees as the trees returned back to their former positions. "That was unnecessary, they didn't have to die."

"They were dead as soon as they were caught." Tom spoke to everyone. "Shame is far harder to live with than death is." He took one last look at them then turned to Ayeka. "You mentioned something about getting us back to our friends?"

"We can carry you to your friend's camp. We have to head in that area to begin our search for The Armor." Joshaldan hadn't taken his eyes from the smoking bodies, something they had said sticking in his mind.

"Which way?" Tom asked and waited until Sasami pointed back behind him. Tom turned in that direction and called over his shoulder. "Take care of Shaela for me, will ya?" At his enhanced speed, he fled into the woods heading the way the camp had been indicated.

Shaela raised her hand after Tom intending to stop him, but he was long gone before she could get the words past her lips. It was probably better that he left before them, if the Juridians were here looking for him, but that didn't mean he had to leave her behind with them.

Ayeka raised her hand to the fire priestess. "Shall we go?"

She didn't like her already; Shaela could just get the thought that Tom liked her for some odd reason. Plus they had some kind of bond, a connection that allowed her to find him wherever he was. She would also have to kill him sooner or later, for he was prophesied to destroy everything if they didn't. She didn't like this Ayeka Jurai, but at the same time, she pitied her.

* * *

**Well, Shaela and Tom had a moment of clarity with each other. She can't be a tough girl all the time, and yes folks, she does have a caring side to her. I don't know if I will have her become anymore enamored with Tom, though I think not getting something she wants makes her want it all the more.**

**The Juridians have come to Krinas to hunt down the Armor and the fighting is about to get extreme. A massacre is going to be on someone's hands as soon as they realize the Armor hides in their midst.**

**Lord Katsuhiko called away by Kagato? Wasn't he the bad guy? Does that mean the Juridians are bad? What about hunting down the Armor of Darkness? Questions may or may not be answered later. I don't feel like it right now T.T.F.N.**


	15. Chapter Fourteen

This Chapter is going to take a moment from the happenings on Krinas, and maybe even begin to explain a bit more of Kalesh and Caira's involvement. We may even see how Kalesh seems to know everything about what he is talking about. I make no promises though... 

Disclaimer: Anything and everything remotely involved with El Hazard or Tenchi series written, spoken, or alluded to in this story is not owned, rented, or been given permission to use by the respected companies that do own both seperate series. Characters not owned are Tom, Jason, Joshaldan, Caira, and Kalesh

* * *

**Chapter 14**

**Playing Games**

With a start, Kalesh looked at the ceiling of the living room as if something above them had made a noise. Even the small cabbit, Ryo-ohki, looked to the roof as if something had drawn its attention as well. Caira looked to the ceiling, trying to guess at what had drawn the attention of the two when Kalesh spoke.

"She is early this year, much earlier than I would have expected." Kalesh was muttering to himself, as if he had forgotten that Caira was sitting right next to him.

"She?" Caira watched Kalesh slightly jump where he was sitting then mutter to himself. It gave her a little satisfaction to finally catch him unaware, but she was wondering as to what the old man was talking about.

"It seems we're going to have a guest soon." Kalesh raised himself out of the chair slowly; the sounds of joints popping making the withered old man groan.

He walked not for the front of the house, but for the rear as he disappeared out the kitchen to the back of the house. Caira followed him out of curiosity, wondering as to what the old man was up to. As she stepped outside of the house, she saw a shimmering that she had never seen before. Light of all colors danced around in the sky and over the water of the lake as she watched, mesmerized by the beauty of what she was seeing.

"She always did know how to make an entrance." Kalesh was smiling softly to no one in particular. It looked like he was even crying slightly from what Caira could see of his face.

At the edge of the lake, a person's body began to form out of the light. They slowly gathered together, one piece at a time as the light solidified gradually. Finally, as the light began to fade, the person could be seen clearly.

Caira would never forget this day, the day she saw the most beautiful person anywhere. Lavender hair tied off in pigtails, just as he had told her, and her robes of the whitest fabrics. Her skin the warm color of cream set in a face that could break a man's heart, eyes the softest pink looking out from a warm smile. She had begun to doubt Kalesh's story about the people and who they were, but this woman surely had to have come out of those stories.

"Welcome home, Mother." Kalesh bowed to her, and Caira caught herself in the middle of a curtsey.

"Kalesh, you know I don't want to be reminded of my title when I come here." Ayeka smiled softly as she walked forward and placed a hand to his arm.

"Of course, Lady Ayeka, but to have you come home so early, it's a bit of a shock." Kalesh followed Ayeka look down next to him at the little girl and realized that he wasn't alone for a second time in as many hours. "I am going senile." He muttered to himself then brought the girl forward. "May I introduce you to Caira? She will be living here with me from now on."

A look of sad remembrance brushed across Ayeka's face as she mouthed the name of the girl. Then it was gone and she gave a small bow to her. "It is so good to meet you, Caira. I am Ayeka Steele."

Caira could only goggle at her as she got a closer look. The wooden tiara was still set in her hair and the sheen and luster of her hair was envious. Her fingernails had a color to them that Caira had never seen before, a pale blue to correspond with the bright white of the robes she wore. To stand next to such beauty made her feel very plain and very self-conscious.

For the next few hours, Caira watched and listened as the three of them returned back into the house and talked to one another as they spoke of this and that. It was only when Kalesh made mention of the bedroom upstairs that either of them seemed to remember she was there.

"How is it that you were able to open the door?" Ayeka looked at the girl curiously, wondering what special talent she could have to open a door that was closed by both her and her husband.

Caira was beginning to squirm in her seat as she glanced around, looking for an escape. Kalesh was washing the dishes from the meager lunch they had been offered while Lady Ayeka and she sat at the kitchen table. "I…. I'm not sure myself, Lady Ayeka." Did she do something wrong? Had she intruded someplace she shouldn't have gone? "I heard a voice, I guess. I was very tired at the time."

Ayeka only nodded at this, which made Caira feel much better about being in the room. "And the chest?" Ayeka asked, looking as if this was something very important to her.

"I couldn't open that." Caira wondered why Ayeka would look so concerned about that one piece instead of the rest of the room.

"It's for the best if that chest remains closed." Ayeka sighed with a look of relief on her face. "If it were to open one day, then things will have gotten very bad not just for us, but for existence itself."

Caira wondered what she would mean by that, but she didn't ask and the subject was dropped. A new question to the place of the last one, and this was a bit more shocking than what she would have imagined.

"I noticed that Shaela isn't with you today." Kalesh continued to wash the dishes as he spoke, not noticing that both women were looking at his back.

"She thought that coming here was a bad idea. You know how emotional she gets when she comes back." Ayeka shook her head as she looked sadly around. "I guess I can see her point. Becoming a Juridian isn't something you get accustomed to overnight. Given that it's been only 10 years now, I don't blame her in the slightest."

"Wait a minute." Caira glared darts at the back of Kalesh. "I thought you said that Shaela came from Krinas."

Kalesh was wiping his hands off on a towel as he looked over to Caira. "Shaela the fire priestess was born on the planet of Krinas, this is true." Even Ayeka nodded at this.

"Then how is it that Shaela is a Juridian? Explain that to me." She had finally caught him in a lie; she had the justification for her to be out of this place and away from the man who had killed her father.

"Because she married me." Ayeka said as if it were plain as day. She sipped at the tea before her as Caira looked disbelieving at Ayeka.

"Don't find it so strange, Caira." Kalesh came over and took a chair in-between the two. "Different planets, different cultures."

"Juridians believe that love is not about having children." Ayeka put her cup down and looked calmly at Ayeka as she explained. "For a Juridian, to marry someone is to make them a part of your family. A single person on Jurai could be married to many different people all across the galaxy and not be of the same gender or even the same race."

Caira couldn't understand that. Marriage meant you were going to live with that person for the rest of your lives together. She believed it meant that you forswore all other loves and lovers for one person. It meant living happily till the end of your days with that person and that it was of the opposite gender. She couldn't imagine what it would be like for a woman and a woman to be married together.

"I still remember the look on his face when I told him he had a second wife." Ayeka giggled behind her hand, Kalesh joining her with his own chuckle.

"He did look like he wanted to escape then, didn't he?" Kalesh and Ayeka laughed a bit longer and Caira was confused, but obviously it was about this Tom person.

"Until that day, I never thought she'd ever agree to be a part of us." Ayeka looked like she was reminiscing about the past. "In fact, the first time we had met, she had threatened to physically hurt me if I came anywhere near Tom."

"Why was that?" Caira asked, and Ayeka smiled wistfully.

"She loved him first, yet she wouldn't admit it. At least, not to herself." Ayeka sat back a little and stared off into the past. "That was the first day I arrived on Krinas…"

* * *

"I'm warning you right now, don't go near Tom." Shaela stood a bit off from Ayeka at the camp. She had been flown back with aid from the smaller girl, Sasami, and the man who had been with them.

"Why do you think I would have to go near him for?" Ayeka smiled a cocky smile toward the fire priestess. "If you haven't noticed by now, I am connected to him as he is connected to me. I can feel him no matter where he is." She looked self consciously in a general direction, not really trying, and found him sitting in front of a bon fire with Nazak and Ragland. He had only arrived moments before they had, but he hadn't left the cam since, and that was 3 hours ago.

"He's not your property, just leave him alone." Shaela didn't have much to stand on. She had known him longer, but seeing this woman looking at Tom all the time was getting to be like a sore you couldn't do anything about. "If he cared anything for you at all, don't you think he would be with you then?"

Ayeka glared at Shaela hotly then placed a hand over her mouth as if being coy. "Ah, I see what it is." Shaela looked skeptical that she did see what anything was, but she let her continue. "You're absolutely jealous that I can feel him and you can't."

"Like hell I am!" Shaela brought a clenched fist up in front of her, totally intent on using it on this snotty little bitch.

Ayeka's head came up and she looked back toward Tom, who was now looking at her as well. Nodding once, Ayeka smoothed her robes down and looked at Ayeka with a little respect. "I'm sorry, but this will have to wait for another time." Ayeka turned toward the edge of camp and stopped before she went any further. She looked back over at Shaela with a sly look and said, "I don't think we should bicker like this in public. It's indecent."

Shaela fumed at the receding form of the Juridian until she noticed that Tom had gotten up and was following her as well. He called once to his friend and motioned for him to follow, which took Jason a moment to extricate himself from the cook lines. Shaela jogged after them, wanting to see what they had in mind, only to find that some of the desert tribesmen had gathered where Tom had gone. The Juridian Ayeka was already here dressed for combat in the martial arts gi and Tom took his shirt off, not wanting to be encumbered by anything as well.

Jason stepped forward and raised his hand above his head. "This is a practice match, not intent on harming either opponent, but to exercise their skills against a living person." Jason turned and explained to everyone present. "This contest will last till either one or the other makes their opponent submit. Two submissions are the match. One match wins."

Tom had taken up a loose stance, the same stance he had taken when he had smashed that rock to pieces on Mt. Muldoon. Ayeka had taken an unorthodox stance, keeping perfectly parallel to him, but holding one hand out toward him as if asking for his hand. They looked each other over closely, looking before hand for openings as Jason placed his hand between the two. He glanced at each of them before dropping his hand and stepping back quickly.

Tom was moving only at normal speed, which served him right when he was sent flying backward by an open palm thrust to the chest. The Juridian didn't look very powerful, but she barely knocked his hand to the side and touched his chest, then Tom went sailing back into the crowd of people behind him. He stood back up and looked at Ayeka again who was showing no emotion other than a calm waiting, watching him with a dead stare.

The gauntlet had been thrown and Tom was up for the challenge as he flashed out of sight and back into sight as he threw multiple punches at the Juridian woman. To everyone's amazement, she was every bit as fast as he was, blocking or dodging the punches as they came, merely parrying them back from her. It was over faster than what anyone could follow, Ayeka slapping one of the fists past her, then stepping behind him as she threw him backward over her hip. She wrapped an arm around his neck as he fell, bringing him to a half-sitting position.

"I surrender." Tom spoke, realizing he had lost this one to her. She released him and brought him back up to his feet, a smile on her face.

"You know the outcome will be the same, why not surrender now?" Ayeka wasn't trying to be smug. Her age and years of practicing made this a foregone conclusion in her eyes. She would come out on top no matter what he did next.

"Wanna bet?" Tom smiled at her, a grin that made him seem over confident.

"But you're going to lose, what's the point in betting?" Ayeka wasn't sure what a bet was, but she was sure that it was something that he wouldn't be able to get.

"I bet that if I can get you off your feet, you owe me one favor." Tom knew what he'd ask for if he could get her off her feet, but he wasn't sure that he could. It would be very hard for him since she was so powerful; he may only have a chance if he used The Armor.

"And if I win?" Ayeka understood now what a bet was, but she wasn't going to demand something that would be embarrassing.

"You get one favor in return." Tom set up in his stance again, prepared to go at a moment's notice. He had to do this as fast as he could, overwhelm her in one go.

"Fighters, ready?" Ayeka took her stance again, prepared to beat down her opposition the same as before. No matter how he came at her, she would beat him in the same way as before. Jason glanced at both of them and dropped his hand between them again. Tom waited till Jason was clear, then he disappeared.

"No, He didn't disappear, he split!" she thought as she watched. Shaela couldn't believe her eyes as multiple Tom's popped into existence. There were ten of them, and only one of them was Tom, or was any of them real? Ayeka hadn't moved yet, which made everyone wonder if she was wondering the same thing. All of the Tom's rushed in toward Ayeka at the same time, and Ayeka closed her eyes, waiting for the last moment.

For a moment, there was a second where Tom was sure to win, no one could take on that many people and come out on top. Ayeka turned in her place, grabbed the right arm and threw over her hip as she spun totally around. All the other Tom's disappeared as one slammed into the ground; his arm trapped over his head as her foot placed itself against the side of his head.

Tom looked dazed and dizzy; his head wobbled slightly where he lay as he looked up at Ayeka. "A good idea to create those after images of yourself, but like I told the fire priestess, you and I are connected. I can find you anywhere."

Tom smiled softly at nothing as he sat up carefully, holding his head in his hands as he groaned. "Did you have to be so rough?" Tom's head was ringing slightly, though the pain was beginning to die away.

"Practice or not, If you don't try your best, why even try?" Ayeka dusted her hands off, then her clothes as she reverted back into her robes.

"Well, well, the fastest man on Krinas defeated by a woman." Miz walked past the ring of desert tribesman as they started back towards their camps and their posts, the fighting obviously over with.

Tom didn't look at her. He knew she had a dislike for him that went beyond the physical, his power being the exact opposite that her element could do, but on a more profound level. He stayed sitting on the ground, looking at his hands and wondering about what kind of force he could do if The Armor was totally unfettered by his consciousness. Ayeka got a feel off of Tom and turned to address the water priestess when a shout went up at the edges of the camp.

"Alarm!" A man yelled followed closely by a second. "Bugrom Warriors, 500 keltal and closing!"

There wasn't anything said to either one as they made their feet and ran for the nearest of the defenders. Guards were already milling in place, preparing to fight for their lives, even some of the younger men coming to add to their ranks. They could see them clearly, Bugrom warrior class bugs coming through the woods, unfettered by trees or bushes as they either clambered through, or trampled them out of the way. There was something else behind them as well, something that vaguely looked like giant scorpions.

"Launchers Spotted, Take Cover!" The lines broke in several spots as the scorpion like things snapped their tails forward.

Massive rocks plunged into the outer edge of the lines, taking a hapless man or two who didn't move fast enough. A few screams of despair broke out from a few and they threw their weapons down, running back toward the camps. Shaela and Miz called to their elements and did what they could; pulling the water out of the air and firing lethal darts at the encroaching attackers while Shaela caused shrub and foliage alike to combust suddenly.

Ryoko tried to do what she could for the flying bombardment blasting them out of the air as she could, even going so far as to take flight and shoot them at nearly point blank range. Jason took aim with his weapons and fired as well, giving her all the assistance he could. Tom wasn't waiting for the ground troops to come any closer, reaching to the ground for a sword then running toward the advancing line. The Juridians watched the fight unfold; only helping out when one of the rocks was flying too close to their position by pointing at the rocks. They shattered the rocks with their power with no trail of light, or something as flashy, as the stones simply burst like ripe melons in the air.

The Bugrom didn't hesitate either once Tom rushed toward them, speeding up their own assault toward him and the awaiting people. Some jumped over him for the people beyond, the rest charged toward him, intent on slowing him down or stopping him totally. Jason had to shift his aim from the rocks once the creatures got too close to be ignored. Holstering his weapons, he bludgeoned and threw with all his strength, fighting bare handed against an army of things that knew no fear or remorse.

Washu was already trying to guide the rest of the people away from the fighting, being aided by Afera and the princess. "There's way too many of them to fight off. We have to retreat or we're going to be swamped!"

"We have too many people to protect!" Afera was flying in the air on a strong wind, sending what discouragement she could back at the Bugrom that slipped past any of the guardsmen.

"Get some of them onto the airship; the rest will have to be protected as we can manage." Rune pointed some of the people to the ship, but from what she could see already, the ship was over burdened with those fearing for their lives and packing the decks with their bodies.

Tom knew what he had to do, but he didn't know if he could do it. The Armor had been dormant in his mind for some time now, hiding from those that could do him the most harm. He had the power in his body and he doubted he could control it, but without trying to use it, he and Jason may be the only survivors of this fight. Tom fought faster, carving his way away from the defenders as he could, further back into the ranks of the Bugrom.

* * *

Jason gritted his teeth as the fight continued. He could feel claws slide over his skin, trying to tear him to pieces. He could feel the bile of some acid spitters as the fluid itched on his body. He could even feel the moist popping under his feet as he tread over bodies that had fallen in death or from severe trauma.

This was something he never wanted to do again; this is something that no sane person ever would want to have happen. He felt as if he was trapped in a misery of murder and mutilation as he watched other defenders fall around him, against him as they were slaughtered. The screaming reverberated around him as he fought, helpless to do anything but wave his arms and destroy the next thing that crossed his path.

"Jason!" He could hear Lans behind him, Rune's retainer had come to fight as well. "Jason! If you can hear me, pull back!" Jason thought this was madness, he was up to his eyes in death and Lans wanted him to pull back? Jason smashed forward with the flat of his hands, then turned and ran for a short distance till he could see Lans clearly.

"Thank goodness you're still alive!" Lans clapped Jason's shoulder, a smile breaking out on his face before he turned back toward the milling Bugrom.

The Bugrom had stopped their assault, and for the life of him, he couldn't see why they did. It was obvious that the humans were going to lose and lose badly, so why stop now when victory was so close at hand?

"Jason," Lans turned Jason back to look at him, "Go find the princess and protect her." Lans wiped the blood off his sword as he rallied his men once more for defense.

"You can do that yourself. I'm needed here." Jason picked up a battle axe that was bladed on both sides, though a hunk of blade had been broken off from something.

"You do not belong here." Lans turned to face Jason for a short moment. "We are going to defend you for as long as we can, but even if you were here or not to help us, we are already lost." Lans looked back at the Bugrom as they stepped forward as one entity. "Do what is better for everyone and save the princess! Go!"

He forcibly pushed at Jason, which did nothing but push himself off balance. Still, Jason didn't move as the Bugrom came forward once more, screeching as one. Jason raised his weapon for but an instant, knowing what Lans said was the truth. He threw as hard as he could with a yell of frustration, flinging the weapon destructively into the Bugrom. With his massive force, he took out a long slew of warriors, cleaving through their bodies and back into many other who could d naught but fall.

Jason turned and ran as fast as he could away from the wave of death. Lans knew he would do well as a warrior, he already had the instincts to be true to who he was. Shouting at the top of his lungs for the charge, Lans stepped forward into history.

* * *

The priestesses, Shaela and Miz, pulled back as they went, but their limits were coming quickly, and they knew it. The people had began running away from the Bugrom some time ago, even the desert tribesmen had pulled back as they fought, sometimes futilely. It was now for them to escape as they could, if they could escape at all. The airship wallowed as it began to ascend into the sky, the air priestess helping it fly with her tremendous wind powers. The Juridians had lifted from the ground some time ago, still watching with mild interest as the battle came to its inevitable conclusion.

Ayeka still had a bead on him, her only real reason to be among these people. She was intrigued with him more and more, though he was a common little person beneath her. Still, he was curious to watch as he came to as roughly could be called the center of the problem. He fought there for all of a few moments before even he went under, and she closed off the connection to him before her mind was flooded with his death.

"How much longer must we watch this, Ayeka?" Joshaldan flew lazily as he watched, looking as if he were laying flat on something as he flew.

"We will stay till there is nothing left, Joshaldan." It was their duty, after all. "It's not often you seem an entire civilization wiped out, all those lives and all that knowledge left to slip back into the darkness." Ayeka had seen it once, and it was still a bitter pill to swallow. "You had best get used to this as you will see more if you happen to survive The Armor on this hunt."

"You mean 'If we ever find The Armor', Don't you?" Joshaldan was officially bored with these people. He wanted fame and attention, not babysitting or coddling some minor species that was slowly dying off.

"Please, Ayeka," Sasami was looking more and more upset, "Let's just go. This isn't right for us to watch this massacre and not do anything about it."

"I guess we can go." Ayeka could understand what her sister said. It may be that the council of the trees demanded that they watch this but it was something that she herself couldn't agree on. "Our job is not to watch this anyways. We must find The Armor, and the sooner we do, the sooner we can leave."

The sensation of that man disappeared from her mind. Ayeka turned around and looked to the spot where he had been just a moment before, but she couldn't feel it. No matter how hard she searched for it, the connection was gone like it never had existed. Was this some power of the Bugrom to stop even her connection to someone, or was this something else?

Reality shivered, sending sharp pains of agony out to all living creatures. The Juridians felt it keenly as they fell for but a moment in the air before regaining control. From out of the sea of Bugrom, a column of blackness shot skyward as a scream of fear came from inhuman throats. What had been a massacre of inhuman proportions became something far worse as every Bugrom that touched this darkness became darkness itself.

The Bugrom had bee packed in too tightly to each other and as a result, they were vulnerable to only themselves as their bodies became something else. For each Bugrom touched took on the light of the pillar, changing in a horrible way to something else, something indescribably horrible. It spread outward from the source, moving like a wave coming to shore as it swept outward with a speed unbelievable. As the darkness grew, it shrank just as fast, absorbing back into the column that it came from. All this took but moments to occur, yet within those moments, the army of the Bugrom had been decimated to small pockets of life.

No one moved except for the Bugrom who fled in terror from nothing and everything. Humans and Juridians alike could only gawk in disbelief at something that couldn't be possible and had happened in an instant. The only person who could be seen at the center of what had been the Bugrom was one person. He was there as was the connection that had not been there but a moment ago.

Tom knelt in the spot he had fallen, crying tears of blood as his eyes reverted back from the crimson they had changed into. In his mind he could feel everything he had absorbed into himself. Each thing in his mind had been a living entity, a separate consciousness that he had taken into himself. He could even feel the humans who had been unfortunate enough to still be fighting the Bugrom as they died by him, absorbed into his heart and soul like so much water. He wanted to be sick, wanted the mercy that death could bring him, but knew that The Armor and his own body would never allow that.

"It's The Armor!" Joshaldan had changed into his battle garb, pulling upon the light in his soul, the purity of righteousness, and swooped from above.

Ayeka and Sasami did as well, swooping down on their target as they called for the faith and the strength to slay him, this abomination. Sasami had wanted this chance to prove herself, to prove that she could do this, take down The Armor without any supervision. Ayeka was afraid of what they were about to go against, and if the person still was sane, or completely under control of The Armor.

Joshaldan was first to strike, throwing his staff which had changed as it flew through the air, glowing with its own inner light as it raced downward toward Tom. He didn't move to avoid it, he could of, but he merely spread his arms wide and let it pierce him. The staff struck the ground with tremendous force, punching into the ground through Tom's body without as much as a scream of pain. Sasami was next, her wand forming into multiple wands as they leapt from her hand and raced into his form.

Tom opened his mouth as if to give cry to everything in him, happening to him. He wanted to with all his being to beg for forgiveness, yet he couldn't even forgive himself. This is what he deserved, this is what he wanted. Ayeka came last downward and to Tom's eyes, she was still beautiful. Her clothing and weapon raised high to pierce him finally in the head, or to lop it off with a swipe. He closed his eyes as a comfort came over his soul.

It was that feeling of comfort that made Ayeka stop before severing his head from his body. The weapon was held next to his shoulder, intent on rending him in two from shoulder to hip. It was that feeling of thankfulness that he would die that made her hesitate, and it was that hesitation that The Armor took for weakness. Ayeka realized her mistake as Tom was lost from her mind again, The body pulsing with an unearthly light. Joshaldan screamed something, Sasami pleaded or cried out, and then there was a feeling of lightheadedness, followed by unending darkness.

* * *

Ayeka awoke a time later, though not sure if waking meant she was still alive. She held her hand up in front of her face, looking at herself and trying to gauge if she could really see through herself.

"Well, you finally awaken." Joshaldan's voice called over to her right as she lay wherever she was.

"What happened?" Ayeka felt tired. She had never felt like this, no matter how badly she exerted herself or her powers. What had happened to her?

"We failed, that's what happened." There was the sound of people all around them. She reached out through her source, her light, and felt hollow as she reached for nothing. She shivered for a moment then reached deeper.

"Sister, don't." Sasami took hold of Ayeka's right hand. There was something comforting in that, but also something wrong. Sasami sounded shaken, something her sister had never sounded like before. "It's not there anymore, we all don't have it."

Ayeka couldn't understand. She felt around in her head, making sure everything was alright. The connection to the boy was still there, she could feel him way off in the distance, and that he was heartbroken. She felt the connection to her sister, could feel that she was going to be sick soon if she didn't eat something, and that she was also heartbroken but not for the same reasons. She reached once more for her armor, her inner light, and felt nothing once more.

"Lady Ayeka." Someone had come up on her from off the side.

She sat up slowly with some help from her sister and took a good look at her guest. They were plain clothed, browns and blacks for her ensemble, and it looked to have been slept in more than once. Her age would have been by her looks, but Ayeka felt that this person was a bit older than ever herself. Red hair flamed outward, though it was tied back with a ribbon.

"I am Washu, a scientist from the planet Valkor VII." The woman stood a ways back either out of deference or out of fear, but for whatever reason, she looked nervous. "Ayeka, please try to understand what I'm about to tell you for this is going to be very important for not only you but for us as well." The woman wasn't making very much sense, being cautious and secretive. With a great sigh, she blurted "I'm sorry to tell you that your powers have been stripped from you for a long time."

That was impossible. Juridians couldn't be stripped of their connection to The Light; it's like taking a fish's ability to swim from them. No, it had to be nonsense, just a coincidence that she couldn't feel the source in her right now. She looked deeper to that spot where her power would be at, scrounging for anything that could be called The Light.

"Please, try to understand that he didn't mean to do this intentionally." She wasn't paying attention to her anymore. She wasn't telling her anything useful, just lies and more lies coming from a tainted one. It was no wonder that they destroyed any that had been in contact with The Armor, their lies so easy to believe if one had an ear for such things.

"Our lives are nothing, now. We are meaningless in The Light." Joshaldan was speaking the benediction, the last rites for those who are 'lost'. He spun a branch in the fire he sat before as he recited by rote. The only changes that Ayeka was truly conscious of was that he was speaking as he was 'lost'. "The Light is all comforting, all merciful, all loving as you return to that which gave birth to all."

"Be at peace with yourself, for know that you return to fuel The Light and all its mercies." Tom walked out of the shadows and everyone jumped where they were, turning to look at him as he spoke the end to the benediction.

He looked less than living; his face had blackness in streaks where the shadows lay on his face. His skin looked pale and slick with sweat yet from the connection Ayeka could tell that his health wasn't bad enough to cause this. What this change was, had to be caused by The Armor, and gave proof to the stories that the possessors were changed with every usage of the cursed thing. Although his voice was mocking, his heart was dead and weeping.

"You would dare show your cursed face to us?" Joshaldan was to his feet, looking for a weapon he could use on Tom.

"I would be dead and gone if I had a choice, but even suicide is taken from me." Tom stood where he was, making no attempt to be apart of their group. He stood in the shadows and took comfort in their clinging embrace. "You should watch your tongue when in the presence of your betters, boy."

Joshaldan took a step toward Tom, but a raised hand from Ayeka stopped him. Ayeka looked at Tom with disdain. "What brings you to us, O Master of Death?" Tom flinched, but that was the intention of using the name.

"I bring you news of your upcoming demise." Tom looked like he was going to be sick, she even felt revulsion roll through the connection between each of them. If she could of, she would have removed this bond here and now. "The Juridians, your companions know that you have fought and lost against me." Ayeka looked at the other Juridians, and Sasami passed a glance between him and her sister. "They have decided that you are 'tainted' and that all here shall be 'purified'."

So, that was why this Washu was so scared. The thought of a Juridian purification hadn't been heard of in many a millennium. It looked like it was about time for that great tragedy to be renewed. Ayeka looked at him, sealing off her connection from him as he had done once before, not letting even her feelings through to him. She could not feel anything coming from him, only that he was definitely in one direction. Even that made her skin crawl, but she would have to endure it till she could be 'cleansed'.

"You've effectively killed all of us." This wasn't a question Ayeka was asking. She spat the statement with as much spite as she could muster, feeling that it was inadequate for what she wanted to do.

"I am reminded of that fact every time I look at someone." Tom turned and walked off into the shadows, nearly disappearing from sight. She could still feel him walking away as he spoke. "I'm not allowed to forget. 'It' won't let me."

* * *

Kalesh had left some time ago, leaving the two ladies to themselves as Ayeka told the story. The sun was coming to midday by the time anyone had seen the man tottering around. He moved past the open doorway leading outside the house, humming to himself. Ayeka raised her face to look at him, smiling gently as she listened to the song as it moved around the house.

"Enough of stories." Ayeka spoke lightly as she stood up, smiling warmly as she walked around the table and to the door. "We've been inside all day, and I'd like to walk in the forest for a little while." She held her hand out to Caira with a glowing look on her face, waiting as if she knew she would come with her.

In fact, Caira needed to learn the woods if she ever intended on trying to leave the old man behind. She certainly didn't want to live her life out in seclusion with the crusty old codger, so going with the woman wasn't such a bad idea. Hours later, she would wonder why she had ever thought such wild ideas. They had gone through the woods with a complete lack of desire for any one thing.

Caira didn't speak much with Ayeka, though it could be said that Ayeka didn't say much either. They both walked almost quietly through the few areas of trees and flowers that arrayed the perimeter of the house, listening to the life around them and the wind playing through the trees. They had come full circle and had returned to the back of the kitchen late in the day, the time slipping into the past far faster than believable.

"It's been wonderful coming back here and visiting." Ayeka was staring across the lake as she spoke, but her eyes weren't focused on the present

Caira looked that way as well, marveling at the beauty the little secluded house as it began to be truly noticed. The seclusion made the house seem lonely at first to her, but now that she had been here with Ayeka she didn't feel so alone after all. There were all sorts of things one could do around here to keep busy, so many things that needed done, or you could simply forego doing anything at all and just be.

Caira looked up to Ayeka to ask her something, but whatever it had been was lost from her thoughts when she noticed that Ayeka was silently crying to herself. By the look on her face, she was happy about something and Caira guessed that she hadn't even noticed that she was opening weeping. It was just a short moment before Ayeka wiped away the tears and smiled reassuringly at Caira.

"I'm sorry about that." She spoke a little softer than usual as she regained her composure. "It's just that, this place makes me remember Tom. He was always quiet and subdued around people. He was also very alone, even surrounded by his closest friends and family. I miss him very much." Ayeka chuckled softly and said with a smile, "Shaela would say that I was being weepy again."

"You must have loved him a great deal." Caira said as she wondered how anyone could love someone else that much.

"Actually, I hated him just as much as I loved him." Ayeka smiled ruefully and sighed. "I guess that in some ways, I still hate him."

Caira looked at Ayeka with confusion. "How can you marry someone that you hate?" She couldn't believe that marrying someone that you hated would make you act like a ninny.

"Shaela would be able to explain it better than I could." The thought of Shaela trying to explain a love/hate relationship to someone who was too young to understand was funny. Shaela always got tongue tied when she tried to explain something like that.

Kalesh appeared from the kitchens, wiping his hands off of flour as he looked for the women. "Lady Ayeka, I have prepared food and your bed for tonight. I must, however, retire early. The festival of Light is beginning tomorrow and as storyteller, I must be there."

"I'm sure you will be as ever the consummate storyteller." Ayeka took Caira's hand and guided her back to the house where a simple repast of flatbread with cinnamon and fruit mixed into it.

There was also some meat placed for Caira but none for Ayeka, who said she had an aversion for the food. Once their meal was taken care of, Ayeka helped Caira with the dishes as with locating Ryo-ohki who had snuck into the cupboard and was munching away in a basket of fresh carrots. It was as they were heading for their rooms for the night that Ayeka hesitated at the doorway into Caira's bedroom.

She stared for a long time at the room itself, The bed that was made larger than normal and the small dresser with far too few clothing in it. The trunk in the corner that sat forlornly by itself and the flowers in the windowsill that wafted a scent like a fond memory. Ayeka inhaled slowly, letting her mind drift back to that time.

She could see it all clearly as if it was happening all over again. Tom lay in the bed, wasting away from something even Washu couldn't do, both her and Shaela sitting to either side of Tom as he smiled at them. He squeezed her hand gently, his strength so much weaker than what she had ever known it to be. His eyes were cloudy, blinded as he was he could still tell where each thing was by memory. He took one last deep breath and called to each of them fondly as he simply faded away in front of them, leaving his mortal husk and those he loved behind as he went to rest.

"Ayeka?" Caira was looking from the bed, as she was about to climb in, worrying plain on her face as Ayeka realized she was sobbing.

"It's alright, Caira." Ayeka wiped at her eyes and smiled the best smile she could. "This place is full of memories for me." Ayeka watched as Caira got undressed and underneath the covers before she came over and tucked her in. Kissing her once on the forehead, she turned and headed for the doorway.

"Goodnight, Caira." Ayeka closed the door slowly, listening to the girl's reply before she closed the door and headed for her own room. She hadn't remembered that time in a very long while, and it still hurt her terribly. Even Shaela hadn't been the same since that time; more careful of everything, more determined to be better than what she had been.

Ayeka entered her room, and for lack of effects, it was sparser than Caira's room. A dresser for her clothes and a bed for sleeping, and the sole window looking out on the water of the lake were the only furnishings in the room. There were no knickknacks or even a small end table next to her bed; she hadn't really used this room since his death so it was no wonder. She felt a little guilty for the house; having this spare room that no one used, and said a small apology for her needless desires.

She had unrobed and laid the wrapping at the foot of the bed, preparing to slip under the covers when someone touched her shoulder softly in a familiar stroke. The fingers ran their way along her neck up to her hair and back down along her arms as she froze stock still. She could feel arms wrap around her from behind and a body press up against hers from behind, the feel of a warm breath on her neck sending goose flesh along her body.

There was a kiss at the nape of her neck, and the feel of someone inhaling the smell of her hair. She shivered again, this time in pleasure. She had felt this done to her, knew this touch, and felt those lips on her once before. The way he caressed her and held her in all the right ways and places, knowing her needs and wants as if he could read her mind. Her knees weakened as she shook like a leaf, the feel on a soft nip at the base of her neck where her shoulder met.

Then it was gone as if it had never been, the smell of him still hanging in the air as she gripped for the bed, pulling herself weakly onto it. Her body shook with longing for that touch once more, even though she knew it couldn't be. She wrapped her arms around herself, embracing a memory of what had once been, trying to make it be what she wanted. Sleep came a long time after for her, but the memory of what she had felt stayed with her even longer.

* * *

**I did say that I might not totally explain their backgrounds. I got the feeling that I should keep their backgrounds a secret for a longer period of time. I am willing to answer any questions that anyone would pose, but I may leave some questions in the dark. There are about Six or Seven more chapters that will be posted and soon. I will say that it seems strange that Ayeka knows this Kalesh and even claimed to be married to Tom when there has been no mention of him at all through the entire story he has told to Caira. Doesn't that strike anyone else strange as well? T.T.F.N.**


	16. Chapter Fifteen

Welcome once again to another exciting Chapter filled with lust, hatred, humor, and the insane ramblings of a man bound to a hellish armor. Yes, Folks, the Biscuit is here to present to you Chapter 15. Once again, I entreat you to ask all and any questions you have so that I may answer them for you.

Disclaimer: The Biscuit does not own the right to protray any and all characters to El Hazard or Tenchi series. The Biscuit does not own the right to use the right to use or reference any and all pertaining to said universes. The Biscuit does have the right to dream he is filthy rich from the royalties from owning said universes, but curse his fate for not owning either of them.

Warning: There is one scene of brief nudity and implied interaction between a man and a woman in the nude. If you can't figure out what they were doing with their clothes off, you shouldn't be reading this Story.

* * *

**Chapter 15**

**Surprises for Everyone**

Caira awoke peacefully, the warmth shining in from the window and landing on her bed making her feel cozy and safe. Ryo-ohki lay asleep at the foot of the bed curled into a little brown furry ball as it softly slept, an ear twitching now and then as it dreamed its small dreams. She was beginning to think of this place as home, and she wasn't sure that was a good thing or not. Even though she thought of the old man as a murderer, she really thought that Ayeka was a very nice person to be around.

She wondered what it would be like for Ayeka to be her mother. She had lost her mother a long time ago while The Queen of Darkness known as Tokimi, had been in power of this planet. Her father never had made mention of her death, only that it was the will of The Queen. When she sent her warriors, they killed everything till they reached their goal. They had only come for her mother that night, and for no one else.

As much as she liked Ayeka, she wouldn't be attached like that to anyone. She lost everyone she came close to and it was better not to hurt herself by making such bonds. She was suddenly chill and dug deeper down in to the blankets, trying to find at least a little warmth in the blankets. The light began to pick up outside and Caira made a silent wish that it became bright enough to warm her.

Ryo-ohki's ears pricked up and the cabbit yawned sleepy, but looked toward the light as if it was the source of its waking up. Strange that the cabbit would do something out of a dead sleep, and then she remembered that it had done the same thing as yesterday when Ayeka had arrived. The light began to die off of its own volition and she was beginning to wonder if someone really had arrived when she heard the voice.

"Get up and get moving!" A female voice bellowed loudly enough to raise the dead. "The sun's near midday and I don't smell food cooking!"

Shut up already, you addled brained drunkard!" Ayeka yelled from out of her own window, which was probably next to Caira's considering how loud she sounded. "There are decent people trying to sleep!"

"You're the one who should pipe down, prissy little princess." The feminine voice sounded close, probably just out the window. "Just because you're in the house doesn't make you the owner, just the 'tenant'."

Caira got out of the bed and walked over to the windowsill curious as to whom this person was that was arguing with Ayeka. Was it a person just as beautiful as the Juridian was, or as horrid looking as the old man looked? Peering out the window, she spied a young woman approaching her middling years. Red hair flamed outward from a headband embedded with a fire opal, and her clothes matched their owner as being flamboyant and loud.

A red skirt that rode high on the hip, boots with a slightly raised heel, and a bodice that was two sizes too snug for her which made her look like she was about to fall out of it just by breathing wrong. Her skin was well toned, looking a dark shade of tanned that was both well formed and muscled well for a fighter. She stood defiant, even as she spoke her mind to what seemed like an obvious friend, but a smile on her lips and a giggle in her voice made her not so intimidating.

Kalesh appeared around the corner, obviously from the kitchen side as he brought out what looked like some kind of fruit for the red haired woman. "It's good to see you once more, Priestess Shaela." Kalesh gave a short bow to the fire priestess who blushed softly.

"I gave that title up long ago, Kalesh." Shaela took the offered food and bit into it, taking a large bite from the fruit. "Sometimes, even I forget that I was once called that."

"You know Kalesh." Ayeka smiled in a reminiscent way as she looked at the old man. "He never forgets anything, not the smallest bit."

"I only wish that were true." Kalesh blushed slightly as he bowed to Ayeka. "I'm very old, and my mind doesn't work as it used to."

Shaela scoffed. "You'll never change, you know that? Always going to be a smooth talker whenever it comes to the ladies."

"The food will be ready shortly, Shaela." Kalesh turned to avoid making a scene of himself with a bright shine in his cheeks. "I'm sure you must be hungry if you came this early."

"You don't have to go through the trouble, Kalesh. I ate before I left." Her body protested after she spoke, which made Ayeka giggle and Shaela blush.

"I keep forgetting you're on a see food diet." Kalesh called over his shoulder. Ayeka laughed harder and Shaela blushed redder.

Deciding that she was getting famished herself, Caira got dressed in one of the new clothes that had been bought for her and went down to the meal. Down in the kitchen, Ayeka and Shaela were already sitting at the table, talking over their food as they ate. Apparently, the reason for Shaela to come here at all was because something had occurred that changed the current plans she had been going to do.

"You're telling me that Valkon VII just disappeared? And the Council is refusing to be at the meeting that is on their doorstep?" Ayeka was eating a fruit dish mixed in with a creamy substance that looked to have the consistency of mud.

"You know those old farts. They'd wait till the planet broke from underneath them before they would admit that they might be in danger." Shaela was still eating the red fruit in her hand, only now the red skin was near gone on one side and she was working her way around it.

"The Council of the Trees thinks they are the wisest people, but power breeds arrogance and near sighted conclusions." Shaela finished off the ravaged fruit and gave it a pitch out the window, which brought a none to happy look from Ayeka and a chuckle from Kalesh.

Caira was wondering whether she should come in on the conversation when Kalesh spoke. "Come in, Caira. You're perfectly welcome to sit with us." Ayeka turned to smile at Caira while Shaela looked at her for the first time with curiosity.

Caira came in and took a seat carefully, nervous in front of this strange person. The name implied that she was the fire priestess from the story, but could she be certain that this was the truth of the matter? Kalesh came over and placed a small breakfast before her of toasted bread and fried eggs. To keep herself from being too conspicuous, she began to eat her eggs before she thought to herself "Why should I be hiding when I've done nothing wrong?"

"So this is her, huh?" Shaela spoke aloud to no one in particular as she watched Caira. "This is the girl who's going to be living with you?"

"Yes," Kalesh spoke sadly for the girl's unfortunate circumstance, "She has no one else and they were going to otherwise put her in another family. Parents have enough problems with their own children."

"Children are not a problem as long as you know how to handle them." Shaela spoke what she thought was obvious, and Ayeka said at the same time, "Children need love and guidance, not handled." Both Ayeka and Shaela looked at each other with mild annoyance.

"I'm so glad we can agree to disagree." Kalesh spoke lightly and brought his own food to the table. "At least we know that Caira will be able to take care of herself."

Shaela held her hand out to Caira. "Pleased to meet you, my name is Shaela Steele." Caira took her hand and shook it politely.

She looked at Ayeka, then back at Shaela. "You were both married to the same guy?" Caira still couldn't wrap her mind around that concept.

"Yes, we are." Shaela took and patted Ayeka's hand softly. "You think that's weird, don't you?" Caira blushed from the obvious truth. "Trust me when I say it's not easy living with Ms. Perfect here."

"Excuse me, Shaela," Ayeka's face had gone smooth, but she was still smiling, "You're not exactly being fair about this."

"I mean, you have no idea what it's like to get a little private time with someone you share." Shaela continued like she hadn't heard anything.

"Shaela!" Ayeka looked shocked beyond belief, her cheeks flaming bright pink. "She doesn't even understand what you're talking about! Have some decency!"

"I can imagine it's very difficult to sleep with him if you're married to someone else." Caira said as she cut a piece of egg off. "Do you get to decide on who sleeps with him on different nights or wait till you're alone?"

Ayeka looked like she was about to swallow her tongue. Shaela blushed slightly, but laughed heartily as well. Kalesh chose the easy way out and kept his head down in the food. Caira was looking between Ayeka and Shaela with a little confusion.

"You are just talking about sleeping in the same bed, right? That's what everyone does, isn't it?" Caira was getting the impression that she had said something wrong by the way that Ayeka was looking mortified.

Shaela enjoyed seeing Ayeka get ruffled, but tried to save face for her now that the fun was over. "Ayeka kicks while she sleeps. It's very annoying."

"I most certainly do not kick in my sleep." She gaped at Shaela's audacity to imply that she was a 'bed hog'.

"You certainly have a penchant for taking all the covers." Shaela looked at Ayeka critically, daring her to deny it.

"Please, Ladies," Kalesh had held his hands up and brought everyone's attention to him, "There's no need to argue. Everyone has their own way of doing things, even cases where people see or hear stuff before bed. It shouldn't come as a surprise to hear about this, nor should it be embarrassing."

Ayeka's eyes took on a far off look for a moment and Shaela turned to look at her. She squeezed Ayeka's hand as something passed between the two them, as Ayeka seemed to blush slightly for no reason in particular reason. "I still think about him as well." Shaela said softly to Ayeka, "I even dream about him sometimes."

Kalesh was taking a sip of something from his cup and nearly choked as Shaela said this. All eyes turned to him in concern, but he waved them off. It took him a second, but he managed to master himself after a few tries.

"This wasn't a dream, Shaela." Ayeka looked like she was trying to control her emotions. "I could really feel him. It was like he never died."

"Excuse me?" Caira spoke up, becoming slightly confused. "I thought that Tom couldn't die?"

"Caira…." Kalesh meant to quiet her while Ayeka and Shaela were reminiscing, but Ayeka smiled sadly at the girl.

"You're right." Ayeka's eyes leaked a little water, though she didn't sound like she was sad. "He couldn't die, no matter what he put himself through. It was only until he fought Tokimi that he incurred a wound too great for even him to heal from." Shaela had a bitter look on her face, and one of regret, though Caira couldn't understand why.

"He fought a God?" Caira had always heard of Tokimi in stories and in hushed whispers. The Lady Tokimi was a glorified legend, or so she thought till she took her name and dared her to strike. It was the very day that she lost her mother and nearly her own life when Tokimi's assassins had come for her.

Shaela looked at Kalesh with a question on her face. Kalesh answered by saying, "She doesn't know about you or Him."

"Idiots." Shaela muttered as if it were a curse. "He died for everyone and no one even remembers."

"We remember." Ayeka looked at both Kalesh and Shaela. "It's left to us to tell everyone, whether they believe it or not."

"Speaking of 'telling'," Kalesh stood from his seat and took his and Caira's plates to the sink, "I must be off for the village. The Festival must be under way and I am very late."

"We'll all go, and leave our doom and gloom behind, what do you say, Ayeka?" Shaela stood up and promptly took hold of Caira and Ayeka's hands, pulling them up out of their seats before they could argue.

They walked through the woods; the girls holding hand while Kalesh walked behind them at his own pace. Caira felt like she was with a real family, Ayeka the motherly and protective, Shaela the big sister, and Kalesh the father she didn't particularly like. Still, walking with them felt like she belonged, and that wasn't something she had felt in a long time.

"I can't believe no one here remembers anything." Shaela was still saying to herself, as if trying to make herself believe.

"Ayeka?" Caira looked up at the Juridian and asked, "What happened afterwards? After you lost your power?"

Ayeka thought for a moment as she tried to orient her mind on the story from yesterday. "I couldn't forgive him for doing something I found sacrilegious as taking our power from us. I wasn't even sure what I was going to do next because of not having that power, but I knew that I wasn't going to die as a weak person…"

* * *

Ayeka slept restlessly for the rest of the night, the feeling of loss permeating throughout her body. She had never once felt so vulnerable and so scared in all her life. The light had been her salvation, her defining grace that would see her throughout her endeavors, and now she had lost what was more precious to her than her own life. She also found something of her herself that was both righteous and disgusting at the same time. 

She hated someone worse than she had never known. She had heard that you could hate someone with all your being and still find that hate lacking, and this was no exception. She had a passion, a desire to do this man harm in any fashion that she could, even at risk to herself. There was no reason for her to continue living anyway, she had lost everything and he must too.

She traveled with their caravan of people. There was no place for them to go to, but the longer they stayed in one place, the faster it would be to find a way to wipe them out. Ayeka couldn't allow anyone else to kill him; it had to be at her hands only. She watched him everyday, though she loathe to lay eyes on him, and she watched him for anything that could be useful to him.

There was a rare few that would actually come near him; even the children were scared of him now for finding out what he was. Adult's rumors were scary for them, but to have a walking nightmare in their presence was far worse. The few people that would talk to him were the desert people and a few of the priestesses; especially the red one that was called 'Shaela'. There was even a smaller group of people that the townspeople spoke of that would talk to him, though they mostly left him to himself.

He rarely ate, he slept even less, in a few days he had gone from normal looking to a corpse on its last legs. No one would associate with him, even a passing 'Good Morning' was ignored as they would avert their eyes and busy themselves with whatever they could find at hand. She could tell he didn't care, or at least he told himself he didn't care, but the truth was all too easy to read. He was in a mental despair that only he would be able to save himself from, and as far as she was concerned, he deserved it.

Sasami did what she could to stave off the longing, helping out the people that had suffered so with whatever she could do, even if it was to help out in the cook lines. Joshaldan found a use for his fighting skills by taking the few warriors that had survived and teaching them how to fight better. His skills in weapons was top notch on Jurai, maybe they could be of a better use to people who would truly need them.

Her head came around as he woke; she looked dead in his direction as he stirred from where he had collapsed. Nearly three days without sleep seemed to be his limits and from the feel of his mind, he was not totally aware of where he was. She thought she had a plan that could stop him or at least make him suffer, something that would be cruel and deceiving, something vengeful. Would she have the fortitude to do it? She wasn't sure herself, but she knew she wasn't going to let him get away with defiling her.

She walked away from the camp towards where he had slept. If this was going to work at all, she couldn't tell anyone what her intentions were, not even her own sister. She didn't care much what anyone was going to think of her after this, she only knew that she wanted to do something that would make him even worse off than what he was. She began to undress herself as she got close to him, resolving herself that this was the only way she could hurt him adequately enough.

He had chosen to be among the roots of the trees, sleeping where his back had some protection and his enemies could only come at him from one direction. She could see one foot peeking out from around the other side of the tree, his toes wiggling in the light as the sound of joints popping came to her. She was as ready as she could be, taking from his mind what he considered to be provocative and sexually desirable while he slept. She was as good as she was going to get with her clothing half covering anything about her.

She was about to come around the side of the tree to do what she must do to exact vengeance when she heard someone else's voice. "We are about to have a guest." The feminine voice spoke aloud. Ayeka froze where she was as the voice continued. "Should we get dressed for them?"

"It's the Juridian woman I was telling you about." Tom spoke brusquely to the woman. "She thinks she's going to seduce me and then break my heart as she betrays me."

Ayeka was being mocked, and mocked while she was half clothed as well. She adjusted her clothing and cinched the bindings off one at a time as she made herself decent again.

"You didn't tell anyone that you were not available for such things, did you?" The woman was acting like betraying someone dear to you was something natural, even something she would do because it suited her.

"And let them think I'm even more insane than what I started out as being?" Tom mused aloud and tasted it as he let it hang in the air. "I would rather you come with me back to camp to let everyone know that I'm not only a lack wit, but totally brain dead."

Ayeka had just tightened the last knot off when a woman totally unclothed stood up from behind the tree and stretched. It disgusted her that they would expose their skin in a place like this where anyone could see them, but it was even more disgusting imagining what they had been doing that would need her to expose her body as she was. What did make her wonder was why this person had blue skin and white hair, whereas the people in the caravan that they traveled with showed no signs of such traits?

The woman turned slowly, profiling herself deliberately as she came around to view Ayeka. There was nothing in her red eyes; no emotion lay there that could be seen. There was only complete assurance that what she intended would be done at any cost, and it would be done right the first time. Ayeka felt like she was being challenged, which was ridiculous. She had no idea what she was up against; the fool woman, plus she slept with the possessor of The Armor. More the fool if ever there was a reason to name her one.

"So this is the child who would try to kill you?" Meris walked toward Ayeka unconcerned about her nudity. Ayeka glared hate at her, but kept quiet. "How could you even compare a child like this to me?"

"All I said is that she wanted to kill me." Tom came from around the tree, his pants the only thing he had on.

Meris turned back to look at Tom with a wicked smile. "I want to kill you, too."

"Take a number." Tom disappeared around the tree trunk, the sounds of clothes rustling from behind it.

Meris turned back to look the Juridian with a more careful look, as if she didn't get the full measure of her the first time around. After a lengthy study, Meris addressed her. "You would do well to know that I don't appreciate having anyone else handle my Tok-Ran."

Ayeka looked confused. "I don't know what you're talking about." Meris grabbed the neckline of Ayeka and pulled her very close, so that she wouldn't have so far to slay her.

"I know you have a mental connection to him," Meris dared her to deny it with the simple statement, "I also know that you are trying to kill him." Meris let go of the Juridian and patted her robes softly, smoothing them. "Don't play with knives, little girl. You'll get cut." She turned away from Ayeka before she could reply, not concerned what her little mind could bring to her aid.

Before she could go back around the tree, Tom flashed away from it, heading deeper into the woods as his mind bled fear to Ayeka. Meris didn't wait any longer than it took for her to grab her clothes and dive into the nearest shadow, her body disappearing as if she had dived into water itself. Two flashes of Light flew past as fast as Tom had disappeared, heading in the direction he had fled.

"Juridians." Ayeka spoke aloud, looking for the third light that would mean that the two young ones weren't going to try and fight him solo. As powerful as a Juridian was, The Armor had proven to her that they were outmatched in a fight. Ayeka prayed for their safety, and hoped that they would win against him.

* * *

Tom ran for miles away from the encampment. He knew what would happen if they got to close to the people, they would get caught in the fight that was about to occur. No one needed to die because of him, so getting away from everyone was the best thing he could do. Trees parted to hills and hills bled back into trees as Tom finally chose a combination of hill and tree that he hoped would be aid and not hindrance to him. 

Meris came out of a nearby shadow, nearly dressed as she strapped on her weapons and loosened every blade she had. "You run from your enemies?" She asked him with a cocked eyebrow.

"I choose my battles and where to fight them." Tom looked back the way he had come from, already seeing the shine of more lights. "Only a fool fights where his enemies are strongest."

"Then you have a plan." Meris was crouching down beside him, deciding that she was going to fight with him whether he liked it or not.

"I have a surprise, not a plan." Tom started to tap his foot, as if he were hearing music being played. His heart rate came up as he thought of music, preparing to fight for survival.

"You are a fool, fleshling." The Armor was all for running and its contempt was nearly palpable. "Flee while you can and live to fight another day, far away from these beings of light and righteousness."

"They would simply hunt us down till we made a mistake." Tom thought back at The Armor, his decisions set in what he was going to do. "I'm not the type for running, so flee now or get ready to kill something."

Tom's body rippled as The Armor assumed a physical form on him. Its interests were peaked as Tom shivered with the feel of a clamminess that wasn't real. "I'm going to fight on instinct, so I won't be able to tell you what I want to do next. Can you figure out what I need before I think it by my movements?"

"Mortal, I have fought countless battles." The Armor sounded proud of this. "If I cannot figure out what you want by reading your thoughts, we are both dead."

"Good enough." Tom thought even as he spoke aloud. "Here they come."

The lights had just cleared the branches of the trees behind them, unprepared for The Armor as it stood on the hill before them. Tom had raised his hands and commanded, forming two balls of darkness to form and launch too fast for Meris to see. She did watch as the lights split up from each other, the orbs following the lights with minds of their own. Tom paid attention to one as The Armor commanded the other, Tom only thinking how he wanted to move the orb to have it follow his mind.

The Juridians had circled him, creating weapons of light and bashing or slicing through the orbs, which winked out of existence with a loud popping sound. Swerving back toward the hilltop, they brought their weapons up to strike. Tom gave them their opportunity, waiting till they were on top of him, then falling backwards away from them as they passed overhead. Meris launched her dagger at one, having it fall useless from the chest she had aimed for. She cursed as she realized she could do nothing against them unless they wanted to drop their armor for her.

Tom came back to his feet, The Armor already forming black wings and taking to the air above the hill. He didn't fly in any one direction, just away from the ground so that Meris couldn't be struck by accident. The Juridians came to a stop and fired their own variations of long range projectiles, flattened discs and razor edged blades that The Armor either batted away, or merely forced from around him.

"Come on!" Tom yelled toward them, taunting them. "Can't you do any better than that? You're supposed to destroy me, not tickle me!"

Had they any battle experience, such taunts would never have worked against them. Foregoing the ranged attacks, they switched back to their primary weapons and charged him low and high. They must have been thinking of catching him in a pincer attack from two sides, though they were too close together to pull off the attack. It wasn't anything for him to worry about though, as he decided to attack.

Tom lifted upward toward the upper Juridian, all intents and purposes saying he was going to ignore the other while he struck. The lower changed their angle and flew nearly straight up, coming nearly vertical toward the sun as they aimed for his midsection. Tom shifted and spun, bringing his feet around and down as his wings disappeared making him fall toward the now unprepared Juridian below. The Upper could only watch and call out as Tom grabbed their neck as he fell behind them and ripped their head from their shoulders, resummoning the wings to stop his descent.

The body lofted for another few feet before in an explosion of light and sound, the body disintegrated into bright particles of light before fading away into nothingness. The Juridian yelled and flew downward, its weapon changing from a bludgeon to an ax as they intended to cleave him in two. Tom smiled as the weapon sliced into his body, then his body melted away before the stunned person. Tom came down from above them, the flash blinding everyone for a moment; he had left an illusion behind. He drove with all the force he had from his sudden descent, bringing both him and his foe earthward where they plunged hard into the ground.

Tom rolled off of them on impact, the force of the landing stunning him momentarily, but hurting them more. Meris came up from behind the fallen form, straddling their upper body as she pulled free a second dagger. Tom didn't have the heart to stop her, what was the point? They would come after him whether he saved their lives or not. She made it merciful for them, one slice along their jugular, then rolling free as their body flared once and exploded as the other.

He felt it from them. With each death of a Juridian, Life died and The Armor relished in the exquisite feel of emptiness left behind in their wake. He lay on the ground where he had rolled free from his opponent, The Armor fading away from his body as he panted. Exertions, even if The Armor was the one doing the work, had taken their toll on his body.

"Well done." The Armor was impressed, but only slightly. "You were able to stave off two Juridians and survive. I do hope you realize that next time, they will be wise to your tricks."

"You're preaching to the choir." Tom felt sick to his stomach, but he would bear it.

"As a fighter, you lack experience." Meris walked over to him and put a boot on his chest.

"Luck is also skill." Tom didn't attempt to move her boot; she'd only stomp on his chest if he tried.

Meris nodded then moved her boot. "You drew blood today, tomorrow your own may flow freely. Never forget this feeling." She sounded proud and reverent, even fanatic.

Tom clambered to his feet slowly, and then spoke to her. "There is no honor in killing those who are so inept as to fall for childish tricks. Murder is murder, no matter what anyone else says about it."

Meris studied him with her unreadable look. This was typical of her when she was thinking carefully about him; he was getting used to it. She nodded and looked back at the recent area that had been a battle. "More will come. We should head back to the pale skins."

"I'm not going back." Tom looked around at his surroundings. "We need to find our own place, somewhere where we can fight whoever we want on our own terms."

Meris looked around herself. "I can find places like that better than you can. I will return when I find such a place." She glared at Tom in a warning manner. "Do not think of leaving from here."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Tom said as he crossed his arms in front of him and waited.

Meris eyed him once, then walked to the nearest shadow and sank into it, away to wherever she traveled to. Tom was gone as soon as she disappeared, running for wherever he needed to go to get away from these accursed Juridians.

Katsuhiko felt it when they died. They had deliberately ignored the summons to go find glory, now they were no more. It served them right to be sent back to the Light in shame and disgrace, victims of their own arrogance. They would not be remembered, for they were 'lost'.

Katsuhiko paced, Ryuhou still tracking the ambient energy of The Armor that had been unleashed when it had become manifest leaving a tell tale trail for any experienced Juridian to follow. As a Tracking Tree, the creators of Ryuhou had spared no expense. Now all he could do is wait for his 'guest' to arrive, which should be at any moment.

No sooner had he thought of him than he appeared in a shimmering of light, his transporter sending him down in motes of light from his ship, which should be in orbit above the planet. His white robes were still pristine, and his pince-nez fitted on his nose. Indeed, these were the trademarks of one of the greatest hunters of The Armor.

"Thank you for coming as soon as you could, Lord Kagato." Katsuhiko bowed before him, hands held to either side of him with palms up.

"I came as soon as I heard that you had located it." Kagato seemed to float forward from where he manifested. He placed a hand on Katsuhiko's shoulder and smiled gently. "Have no fear that I will give you every possible aid I can to stopping this monstrosity from leaving the planet."

"It is a relief to know that you will aid us, Lord Kagato." Katsuhiko looked sadly off to the west. "I'm afraid that we have just lost two aspiring hunters to 'it'."

Kagato looked off to the west. "Yes, it appears they were young, and foolish. Why was their veteran not with them?"

"I had sent for all Juridians to return." Katsuhiko explained. "They must have felt The Armor nearby to where they were at and decided to hunt it down by themselves."

Kagato shook his head. "I will hunt down this new foe, Katsuhiko. The danger is too great to lose anymore of our people. You must go with them and cleanse what is left of its taint."

"You would go alone?" Katsuhiko looked concerned at Kagato. Even as well known as he was, to face The Armor alone for anyone was suicidal.

"I will gauge its wielder, but I will not go for the kill." Kagato smiled slyly as he thought his plan up carefully. "We must corner The Armor together and help each other take it out." Katsuhiko nodded acquiesce at the wisdom that Kagato was giving him and Kagato wanted to sneer. Before he left however, he had one last thing he must do. "Katsuhiko, I have something for you. Something I found on my travels since my last journey to Jurai."

"You honor me, My Lord." Katsuhiko bowed once more.

Kagato placed his hand to the back of Katsuhiko's head. "Don't think of it as a gift. Think of it as…a liberating experience." Kagato's eyes flashed green as a smile crossed his face, and Katsuhiko fell to the ground.

* * *

Sunset had come, and with it had come a cold that would not shake. Sasami and Joshaldan had long since turned in for the night, they're wanting to forget about the lost they now had being an ache that hurt them deeply. Ayeka sat at the small bonfire nearest to them, staring at the flames and picturing her anger through them, as if she could burn away her thoughts along with her foe. She didn't realize she had company till someone sat down on the other side of the fire from her, staring at her with glaring eyes. 

The woman was plainly dressed as one of the other people that had fled from the city, nothing that would draw her out to be anyone in particular, but the more Ayeka looked at her glaring eyes, the more she got to feeling as if she knew this woman. The woman fiddled with the waistband of the dress, as if being uncomfortable with where she was at, and her hands clenched and unclenched as if she was wishing she had something in her hands right then and there.

"Where is he?" The woman asked quietly, low even for Ayeka to hear, though hear it she did.

Ayeka looked confused for a moment, and shook her head slightly. "I'm sorry if you think I know something you don't, but I've only come to this camp and I'd like to be left alone." She went back to staring at the fire and thinking about her hated nemesis.

"Where is Tom?" Ayeka's eyes came up and stared at the woman with avarice. "I know you can find him, so I want you to tell me where he is."

"I think you had best leave before I get upset." Ayeka said each word levelly; trying not to sound totally upset. Mistaking her for someone who was associated with him was not to be expected. She had made no secret about her opinion of him since she had lost her talent.

"If you think I'm scared of you, you should reevaluate your decision." The woman reached to her waist again, and pulled a dagger into life from nothingness. "You will tell me where my Tok-Ran is, or I will simply kill you to keep you away from him."

"I don't care where your Tok-Ran is, even if I knew what that was." That name bugged her for some reason, as if she had heard it somewhere before. She was sure she should remember such a thing, but it wasn't coming to her.

"Little girl," the plain looking woman smiled as she spoke, "unless you want me to cut a hole on your clothing large enough for your butt to hang out so I can beat it red, I suggest you tell me where my Tok-Ran went to."

She knew now where she should know this woman, though she looked nothing like her old self to her. "You're that woman from this morning." Ayeka bristled at being treated like a child. She was many years older than this woman was, and yet she was being treated like a spoiled kid.

"You have three seconds." The woman stood and started to walk around the fire at Ayeka, who stood as well.

Light blossomed off in the camp, and the sound of screams mixed with sizzling energy could be heard. Both Ayeka and Meris turned as one to see what was happening. There appeared to be fireflies flitting off in the camp areas, if fireflies could launch little specks of themselves at the ground. Every spot that the lights hit at, there would be a brief flash and more screaming. People were already starting to run by Ayeka and the illusion that Meris was using, fear etched into their faces and singing from their throats.

The Airship attempted to rise from the ground, only to be touched by one of the small flickers of light that the soaring firefly like creatures sent out from themselves. In a brilliant display, the ship shattered under the impact of the attack, falling out of the air in chunks of flotsam.

"By the mercy of the light…" Ayeka placed a hand to her lips as she stared on in horror.

"Ayeka?" Sasami sat up from where she had been sleeping. "Ayeka, what's happening?"

"Run away, Sasami." Ayeka turned to her little sister and was already grabbing what food they had at hand. "Take Joshaldan and get away as fast as you can. Find someplace to hide at till this is over."

Joshaldan stood up from where he slept at, which had been near Sasami. "It's the Juridians." He spoke nearly with reverence as he watched them flying in the darkness. "They've begun the cleansing."

"Lady Ayeka!" Washu came running up from out of the darkness, carrying a small satchel of water and foodstuff. "We must flee now, while we can."

"We are about to be free of our failure, and you would have us flee?" Joshaldan looked at Washu with a disbelieving look. "I would wish for death than to live this mockery of life out."

"We normal people have to live this life without any special gifts as what Juridians are born with, and you would rather not live at all without those gifts?" Washu couldn't be bothered with the arrogance of this Juridian. People were dying and many more were going to die if nothing was done about it. "If anyone should die first, it should be you three for losing to The Armor as you did. You were the closest to it, you were actually touched by it, and yet they kill the innocent. That is what your power is for."

Women and children were running away in every direction from the destruction that was happening around them, hoping that the dark could hide them from this vengeful wrath. A small group of children headed by the fire priestess and another woman guided them away toward the river where the various culverts and rocky spots could hide many their size. The screams were getting more audible as the lights began moving from where they had been flying and started spreading outward.

"Sasami, Joshaldan, we are going as well." Ayeka had already made her decision. There was never a doubt in her mind.

"I am not about to flee away from a mercy." Joshaldan took a step forward toward Ayeka and she turned to glare at him.

"We are still Juridians, and as such, our duty is to stop The Armor at any cost. We may not have our powers, but that doesn't mean we are useless." Ayeka dared him to say otherwise. She glared at him and took a challenging step toward him.

"But how can we kill something that can't die, Ayeka?" Sasami stood up and gathered up the few blankets they had on them. She would always believe in her sister, even if they both knew that it was going to be near impossible for it to happen.

"I don't know, sister." Ayeka looked at the Juridians as they shot more and more lights at the ground below. "I do know that if I die here today, I will have failed as a Hunter, and as a Juridian." Turning her attention back to Washu, Ayeka said, "I will be going with you, Washu."

"Then keep up with me as you can. I'm not sure even where I'm going myself, but any place has got to be better than here." Washu headed off along the same way as the fleeing people, trying to survive as she could.

Ayeka turned to address the woman she had been talking to only to realize that she had disappeared. It shouldn't have been surprising that she had disappeared. Putting the woman from her mind for the time being, Ayeka, Joshaldan, and Sasami did what they had to do to survive. They fled.

* * *

Tom's sleep was worse than he had ever had. His dreams were filled with screaming and of people dying. His stomach felt like he had rocks bringing him down and they were making him nauseated. There was something terribly wrong happening, he was sure that it was happening, and yet he couldn't awaken. An endless dream of misery and death, and in some way, he was thrilled. 

He woke slowly. It had only been about two or three hours since he had closed his eyes from the position of the sun, and yet he felt refreshed and ready to go. The marvels of his body at work reminded him that he wasn't human anymore, and even if he was human, it was not something to be proud of. All of his senses felt super tuned, the rustling of the leaves in the trees and the smell of various animals that had dared to come near him while he had slept all feeling abnormal to him.

The rank taste of something dead filled his mouth and the feel of oily sickness ran across his skin. He shuddered once as he thought about his dreams and rubbed his arms surreptitiously. Someone was dying somewhere, and it was a very large gathering of death, one where innocent people were dying at for simply being there or for some other misconception that they were in the wrong.

He couldn't go find it. If he were to go, he would makes things infinitely worse by appearing and being a savior to people who didn't want or need him. They would never forgive him and he himself couldn't blame them. No one would admit to unwanted help, no matter how badly they needed such a thing.

Tom rolled over and wrapped his arms around himself tightly, forcing the connection to Ayeka tightly shut. He didn't want to be reminded of her or her hatred, let alone of her in particular. He definitely didn't want to see the shadowen woman, Meris. Shaela was even worse, a person who just hated him. Tom's heart squeezed tighter down on itself for wanting to be something more than just a person to them, and he shuddered as he let the cold seep into his body just a little more.

"You're a pathetic excuse for a wielder of darkness, hiding out in a cave." The voice was harsh and commanding, and totally unexpected as Tom spun around and came to his feet in fear.

The man stood at the mouth of the cave, his eyes glowing green as his silhouette rippled with a slight breeze. Tom sweated slightly as he realized that The Armor hadn't warned him about this person and yet it was obvious that this person knew who he was. He didn't know how deep in trouble he was in, but he was sure it was pretty deep.

"Tokimi was wise to find you as soon as possible. You've become an annoyance that cannot continue." The man raised a hand up and pointed at Tom, where a single small light began to form at. From the green light, the face of the person started to become easier to see, and Tom's stomach dropped even further into his feet.

"The general." Tom thought, though how this person could be one and the same was still in the air.

The small dart launched and Tom threw himself under it, then there was a tremendous explosion and the force of the blast picked him up and threw him out of the cave at the feet of the robed figure. Tom scrambled away, and the robed figure did nothing to try and stop him from leaving. In fact, it looked like it was enjoying himself tremendously as he toyed with Tom.

"And to think you gave the Juridians so much trouble up until now." The man shook his head as he turned to face Tom straight on. "I was little more than dead as soon as they decided that I was unsavable."

Tom called to The Armor to help him out, and received nothing in return. The Armor was either asleep or unwilling to give him any kind of aid. Tom counted his options on his hands and looked around him for anything he could use for a weapon.

"Give me The Armor, and I'll let you live, boy." The man reached out toward Tom as if asking to be given something physically.

Tom felt the lurch inside him that he had felt in the dream when The Armor had possessed a dreamlike variation of a previous possessor. He mentally grabbed hold of it, latching onto it with everything he had.

"It doesn't have to be this way." The man took a step toward Tom with his hand still offered out to him. "Simply give me The Armor and I'll make everything right again."

"Right again how?" Tom was straining with The Armor and his voice conveyed struggle. The Armor wanted to go to that person, and if that happened, what would be the outcome? "I've lost my home, my family, even my chance at dying. How can you fix that?"

"I can do what you refuse to do." The man stepped forward once more and the struggle became worse for Tom. "I will sail across the universe in a sweeping sea of death. I will visit upon every living thing a mercy that can only be found in death. I will give them peace everlasting, but I will give it to you first." The eyes shined green as his voice took on a command. "Give me The Armor of Darkness!"

The Armor demanded it be free of him as well, ripping at his mental hold as it tried to move from him to the man with green eyes. Tom couldn't let him have The Armor, the unknown man would unleash devastation with The Armor, and he couldn't allow that to happen. The Armor must not ever leave his possession, even if he were to lose his mind or his soul to ensure it stayed with him.

He pulled on The Armor, commanded it, and goaded it with his mind. Forcing it to heed him, he pulled it deep into his mind, his essence, and bound The Armor away as himself. There was a feeling of putting something on and locking it into place, then there was strain on him as the man with the eyes of green seemed to pull on his soul.

He dropped his arm slowly as he glared at Tom in anger. "You would make yourself as an extension of The Armor? That's commendable, if not suicidal." The look of a rueful smile flashed at Tom for but an instant. "I could almost envy your resolve." From his left hand, a sword formed from the very green light that filled his eyes. "However, I have been given my task, and The Armor of Darkness shall be returned to its rightful owner. Be at peace in knowing your death was not in vain."

The man moved as fast as Tom did, which was probably why he moved on instinct and not my thought. He fell backwards as the sword swiped through where his head would have been then turned as the sword came down to pierce his chest, all before he had even hit the ground yet. Tom gripped with his hand and moved, trying to get some distance between him and the attacker, only to find that the person was staying within short range of him no matter which way he went.

Tom called for a weapon of his own. A weapon like the man that followed him and from his hand formed a black blade. He defended a sword strike back, stopped and pressed his own attack at the man that chased him. There was a moment of concentration where the man looked to be unguarded, and then the look was gone as the attacked pressed hard on Tom. Tom had no skill in swordplay and most of the attacks cut and burned into his body, bringing pain along his arms and chest as the wounds were cauterized before they closed.

With the point placed under his chin before he could defend himself, the man hissed at Tom, "Give up the Armor willingly and Tokimi will make your existence a less painful one."

Tom batted at the energy blade and only had his hand cut from his arm. The severed appendage fell to the ground as Tom hissed in overwhelming pain. His blade flickered from existence as he bent double over his mutilated arm, blinking away the pain and tears forming in his eyes. The man bent down and took the hand that had fallen to the ground.

"You have made your decision about this, I see." Tucking the hand behind his belt, the man backed away from him. "Remember that I will be coming for you again. I suggest you get much better than this, for next time, I'll take more than just your hand."

"What is your name?" Tom could barely choke the words out and they were too quiet to be heard. He looked up at his attacker and yelled at him. "Who the hell are you?"

The man smiled smugly at Tom. "I am Kagato Hakubi, the true owner of The Armor of Darkness." The man bowed to Tom before fading away from sight, as if he had never existed.

Kagato Hakubi, he called himself. A man that was more powerful, more destructive, more evil than what he could ever be. Tom would make especially certain that he remembered that name, for he had found someone who truly deserved to die.

* * *

**Bet that was a shocker, Lord Katsuhiko, father of Ayeka and Sasami, more than likely dead at the hands of what appeared to be their ally, Kagato. With the last few chapters being placed up here, I plan on another character death coming very soon. Yes, Folks. The retainer of Princess Rune Venus Pronelius, Lans has unfortunately passed away. He will be missed by her greatly.**

**If it wasn't bad enough that the survivors were being attacked by the Bugrom and the Shadowen, now they are being slaughtered by the Juridians. Talk about life hating you. Fear not, for their saviors walk amongst them. Now, if only Tom had not taken their powers from them, they could stop the killing. T.T.F.N.**


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**There is going to be character death in this chapter, I've been alluding to the fact that they're going to start dying off, and this is the first chapter of the sort. I'm not telling you who dies first, but this is definitely the beginning of some headaches from you guys out there who like the few characters I'm using. No adult content this time, unless you call blood splattering impact, gore and disembowelment adult content.**

**Disclaimer: Due to a twist of fate, I do not own anything associated with El Hazard or Tenchi series characters or places. I own only Tom, Jason, Joshaldan, Nazak, Ragland, Malani, and the Armor of Darkness. Permission was not given to use any other characters or places.

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**Chapter 16**

**No Sunshine Strong Enough**

What was left of the people gathered together some miles away from the devastation. The Juridians had moved on to whatever had attracted their attention hours ago, leaving them to their fates as the largest part of the people had been slaughtered where they had stood. There had been no hope for anyone, and in Washu's mind, she could only wonder why they had not listened to her in the first place. Many of the guardsmen had died to divert the attentions of the attackers, only to have their attackers return back to killing everyone indiscriminately.

The people looked more than crestfallen; they were a people that had given up on living. Disaster seemed poised to pounce on them from the very shadows of the woods, and they could care less if it did or not. Rune had gone missing from the retreat, disappeared somewhere in the melee that had swallowed sanity. Priestess Shaela was also unaccounted for, and the only thing they could hope for was that both women were alive somewhere off in the woods.

There had been no sign of Tom either, which worried her more than anything else did. Ever since his first manifestation of The Armor, Tom had cut himself off more and more from those that may be able to help him. The first things that had happened to her own son when he bad been possessed was that he had cut off all social contact with his friends and family. It had gotten worse from there until the Juridians stepped in and ended it mercifully.

"Ayeka." Washu called to the Juridian girl, bring her attention around from the people around them. She looked as if she didn't care, or for that fact, couldn't be concerned about anything. It raised in her such a dislike for Juridians in general that she wanted to be sick. "We need to find Tom as soon as possible."

Ayeka stared at her for only a moment, as if trying to figure out what Washu had just uttered at her in some foreign language. Turning in place, Ayeka raised a hand and pointed off toward the rising sun. "He is over there, and he is alone from what I can feel of him." There was a disgusted look on her face as she spoke. Apparently, she did not like having him in her mind anymore.

"Ryoko." Her daughter popped her head around the trunk of a tree where she had been standing guard duty. "Take everyone here and head toward the depot we had docked at when we were on the ship. See if you can find anything working over there and connect with the rest of the computers that are still operational. Try to find any kind of ship that can still fly into space and how long it will take to get one operational."

Ryoko came from around the tree and stood before her mother. "You're planning on going to go find him, aren't you?"

Washu nodded. "With the Juridians starting to kill off anyone that's come in contact with The Armor, it'd be best if we had someone who could not only defend us but could draw them off as well." Washu looked around at the gathered group of people. "I'm going to need everyone's help, but I have to tell you that from now on we're all in grave danger."

Ragland spat at the ground. "Life is danger, or it would be easy for anyone to live."

Washu looked around once more then nodded. "Ayeka will come with me, Jason, Nazak, Ragland, and Miz. The rest will accompany Ryoko to the depot ad try to find something that is still semi workable."

Jason shouldered his rifle he had been cleaning unconsciously and stood up. Ragland and Nazak called Malani over, giving her parting orders to take their people with Ryoko and make sure that some survived. No one spoke much as they prepared for what had to be done, but all of them were sure that what the next few hours or days brought would change everything even worse than what they knew.

-

Shaela woke slowly, her arms grating in their sockets as she hung limply in her bonds. She looked around slowly, trying to gauge where she was. She hung between two stalagmites, her hands being tied off to them with a well-done piece of rope. The room itself wasn't anything like a room and was more an underground cavern with the lack of sunlight or any entrance that she could she from her vantage point.

"So you finally awaken." A deep, commanding voice echoed around the cavern and from around the left side of her came a Shadowen wearing a finely garbed vest. His cold gray eyes smiled victoriously as his face dripped sarcasm. "Welcome to the kingdom of the shadow tribes, Shaela of Mt. Muldoon."

Shaela had several questions to ask, but showing any kind of weakness to her obvious captor would only serve to enforce the fact that she was a captive. "I thank you for your hospitality, as it were." She looked at the bindings on her wrist, then glared at Galus.

"Please forgive the restraints." Galus actually chuckled at the pleasantries they were going through. "My people take my safety very seriously, I'm afraid."

"So you are their leader." Shaela all but accused and he mockingly bowed to her.

"When I told them to bring me a concubine, I had thought they would bring me some peasant girl from the outlying communities that still existed." He eyed Shaela critically, looking her up and down with a leer. "I never thought they would manage to bring me a priestess, and a feisty one at that."

"I'll show you feisty, Chaltha!" Shaela kicked out at her tormentor, only serving to show her ineptitude and she cursed herself for rising to his taunts.

"Patience, My dear, Patience." Galus walked forward into range of a kick, which Shaela launched at him happily, only to have her leg struck brutally in a vital nerve spot. As the leg fell limply under her, Galus leaned in and licked her neck hungrily.

He snatched his head back before she bit him. "Before I am allowed to touch you though, someone would like to meet you." He spoke with a smile as he looked to his right.

She could hear them approaching from either side of her, their robes rustling quietly. The man with dark hair wore white clothing, and made of fabric that had never touched a loom. His skin was pale, but still retained a youthful complexion even at his age, which Shaela would have guessed to be somewhere near his 40's.

It was the hole where the left side of his head should have been that was the most disturbing. The flesh at the edge of the hole in his head was moving as if alive, separate entities that denied the laws of existence. A luminescent eye floated where his normal eye would have been had his face been left intact. This disturbed her greatly and she was about to scream, but the next man made her throat clench.

His face was totally pale; the only things obviously wrong with him were his eyes that shined a baleful green. He was smiling at her, which was worse with the normalcy that he was exuding, as if nothing in the world could be more right. "Good evening, Shaela Shaela of Mt. Muldoon." His voice was clear and mellifluous, echoing off the sides of the room they were in with little effort. "My name is Kagato, and I'm going to hurt you in the name of my Mistress, Tokimi."

-

Tom sat bolt upright; sweat pouring down his face as his heart rate tried to come back down out of his throat. She was in trouble; he knew it better than he knew himself. She was somewhere below him, somewhere deep in the earth, and she was in pain. Worse, that man was down there as well, the one called Kagato. Shaela was going to die and he didn't know how to save her.

"You want to save her, do you?" The thing in his mind mocked him, taunted him for his simplicity. "You want to rush in to your death and save her?" Tom raged at the voice, and it laughed and jeered at him, mocking his impotence at being so useless.

The thing considered for a moment, its one piece of craftiness looking at his weaknesses and deciding which to exploit next to further possess him. "I will give you the power to go to her, to travel anywhere you need to simply by thought."

Tom knew what the thing would ask of him, and now he had to weigh what he had dreamt. Was it as real as what he thought it was? Was it worth sacrificing himself on something that could have been a lie, an illusion? He couldn't in all sense deny what he had seen, having had many dreams that had felt real to him, but was his control or lack thereof worth the price that he was going to pay?

Mentally, Tom decided what would need to be done, but before he would accept, he took hold of The Armor and commanded. The lock he had placed on them would be released and it would be soon, but before that, he had to be gone from here, for they all would come for him now. Tom accepted the offer and his mind was assaulted by the shock of power from The Armor as it ate away another piece of Tom, leaving only itself in his place. It was agony every time he sacrificed himself, and he knew that a day would come where he would not be able to distinguish where the line between him and The Armor was.

Reaching into the dream, trying to remember in the greatest detail that he could of the place that Shaela had seen, Tom called on the energy, and popped out of existence.

-

Joshaldan wished more than anything that he had his powers back, for being treated as if he were nothing was beginning to piss him off. Two of his old student friends, Aoshi and Tsubasa, were giving out the benediction for the lost as they prepared to kill everyone that was here. The group had nearly made it to the facility which they could see through the trees, only another 200 keltal from them. The Juridians had obviously been waiting for them and now it was over.

He was about to simply throw his weapon down in futility when a warmth rushed over him from head to toe, and the sounds of life became clearer, crisper as something inside of him blossomed back into life. Looking to Sasami, she felt it as well, that glowing feeling that dwelled within everything, giving it form and function, existence.

Aoshi and Tsubasa finished the benediction and came at Sasami and Joshaldan first, figuring on ending their misery quickly since they were now lost. Sasami stepped before Joshaldan and raised her hands in warding, a shimmering light barrier rolling from her hands to cover both her and Joshaldan. Joshaldan called to his inner peace, his power, and was rewarded with a sense of completeness as his power surged up from him, forming around him as it completed his transformation.

Aoshi and Tsubasa hesitated, stopping in mid dive as their targets exhibited The Light. "We were told by Lord Kagato that they had lost their Light." Tsubasa looked curiously at Joshaldan and Aoshi smirked.

"It is most likely gifts of The Armor, mimicking ours. We shall kill them utterly, and banish their affront of the light." Aoshi pulled deeply from his power, strengthening himself to this glorious battle about to take place.

"I will take Sasami then." Tsubasa landed on the ground with a rushing motion, crushing an unlucky person under her with a wave of force as she landed.

Joshaldan rushed into the air, leaving Sasami to do what she must, his eyes focusing only on Aoshi. "You defile The Light with your mockery of he Armor's power, Joshaldan. You, who was favored above all others." Aoshi called to him as he approached, trying to incite Joshaldan into attacking.

Joshaldan, uncharacteristic of himself, called back. "You were always the prodigal son of our teacher, Aoshi. You could do no wrong while I had to fight for everything, even respect."

"It wasn't easy being the loyal worshipper of our master, but in the end, I learned things that will be your undoing." Aoshi summoned a three and a half-foot sword, bringing it up to his shoulder as he sighted along the blade toward Joshaldan.

"If you could kill me as easily as that, you wouldn't be boasting." Joshaldan held his staff up and pointed the broad head toward Aoshi. "I would already be dead."

"Lord Kagato has commanded you die, and Die you shall!" Aoshi rushed toward Joshaldan, who had only time to bat away the weapon or dodge the attacks.

He glanced downward at Sasami who was fighting for her life as well, then refocused on Aoshi as his blade slipped past Joshaldan's weapon, leaving a pierced hole above his heart. Joshaldan returned the pierce with his own thrust, but had the attack batted down and returned back at him, which caused Joshaldan to roll away and try from a different angle.

While Joshaldan battled for his life in the skies, Sasami was doing the same on the ground, while trying to avoid those who had frozen in fear. Tsubasa was known as 'The Sneak', normally biding her time till she exploited a weakness to its full use. Tsubasa the Spider, puller of strings, whose bite was fatal, should your guard drop for but an instant.

Sasami kept her barrier of light up as energy shot after energy shot pounded her defenses, and backlash of the force from each shot taking a bit of her stamina as she tried to keep from buckling. This was not as Tsubasa normally fought, using force till you pounded your foe into submission. She was subtler than this, and yet she was using a hammer where only a nick would suffice. There was something wrong about all this, something that had happened to her that had changed her from being the cunning one. Sasami diminished her Light, weakening her defenses to try to draw in Tsubasa.

Tsubasa grinned victoriously as she stepped closer, continuing to blast the shields that Sasami wielded. Tsubasa gathered all the force she could muster into her body, condensing her inner soul, her Light, into something physical. She dredged everything she could as she stood over Sasami and in an instant, summoned a spike of purest incandescence that sprung up from her hand. She screamed victoriously as she plunged the weapon down at the failing forces that Sasami could no longer manage only to watch as she dived to her left.

Sasami rolled onto her back and placed forefinger and thumbs to each other. She looked up between the hole in her hands at the surprised look on Tsubasa's face, and released a stream of will at Tsubasa. The beam took Tsubasa in the chest and for a moment, it appeared she floated in something glorious as her hair billowed around her, a smile creasing her face. The scream that issued from her drove such beauty away as Tsubasa was destroyed, two fist size holes blasted through her chest followed by the body self-destructing.

Joshaldan had made the mistake of looking when Tsubasa had screamed and Aoshi had exploited that mistake, rising above Joshaldan so that he was concealed in the sunlight. From his right hand came multiple lasers from his fingers as they rained down from above, obscured by the sun's glare. Joshaldan took several shots to his body before he could defend himself, spinning his staff to deflect most of the shots. Aoshi fell right behind the shots, illuminating his body to that of the sun's strength so that he would never be seen till he was on top of him.

Joshaldan had seen this technique before; it was well documented in their history of how one of the ancient hunters had struck from above and took The Armor by surprise. Joshaldan just had to wait for a little longer. He saw it coming moments before they could strike and he rolled with them, their speed such that they'd never be able to stop in time before they passed him. Aoshi flew by with disbelief on his face before he realized what mistake he could have made. Joshaldan didn't give him the opportunity to figure it out as he leveled and pitched his staff after Aoshi.

The staff took him from behind, stabbing into his back and flinging the Juridian to the ground in a spray of dirt. Joshaldan followed downward, landing nearby to the defeated warrior and rolled him over carefully. He wanted to know why a colleague would try to do this, before he lost the opportunity to find out anything at all.

Aoshi looked sickly, his body already losing its color as his blood flowed freely, his armor flaking off as it died before he did. "F-Forgive me…My Lord…. I could not…" Aoshi's eyes were beginning to glaze with death as he struggled to speak. Sasami came close by, a hand over her mouth. "P-Please forgive me, Lord Kag…."

Aoshi's head lolled to the side, his eyes staring unseeing at nothing. The body withered on the staff, drying to a desiccated husk within moments, then turning to ash as death took him. Joshaldan frowned and Sasami gasped both finding this odd from how a Juridian would normally die.

"Have you ever seen anything so horrible in your life?" Sasami couldn't believe she had seen what she had just saw.

"That wasn't a normal Juridian." Joshaldan stood and took his staff up from out of the ash, marks of advanced aging marring the surface where the body had been stuck. "Contact your sister immediately. Tell her we have a problem."

-

Ayeka regaining her powers had been a shock for everyone, more so for Ayeka who had been looking deep in herself once more for any sign of The Light. Suddenly, her armor and weapon snapped into place, staggering her and surprising everyone as she slumped to the ground in shock. There had been a moment of confusion, but Ayeka played it off as something that was bound to happen sooner or later. Washu wasn't as believing as the rest of them though, choosing to delay her final analysis for a later date. They made better time with Ayeka's help, now back to her old self, she could help them all travel with her power, if at a small taxing of her strength.

They arrived at the cave that Tom had stayed at, the signs of a small fire and a worn flat spot where he had laid down at the signs that he had been there. Anyone else would have destroyed the signs that this had been a camp, but Tom was either unconcerned that he was followed, or had hurried off before he had even thought about it. Many signs led up to him coming here, but there were no signs that he had ever left.

"So what did he do? Grow wings and fly away?" Jason asked as he looked around the cave entrance again for signs of feet leaving.

"I'm telling you that he didn't leave here." Ayeka stood in between the fire pit and the place that looked to be a depression of dirt where someone had been rolling around. "I can feel him all over this place. I even sense him coming from here."

"He's obviously not here though." Miz summoned up a small trickle of rain and doused the last of the embers that were still burning in the firepit.

Ragland and Nazak came back from scouting around the area outside, making absolutely sure of what they knew for a fact. "He's been gone nearly an hour from what we can tell, and he didn't leave here by normal means." Ragland spat at the ground and placed a hand near to his sword. Nazak had about the same to say except he added. "The only other way he could have left without us following him through the trees."

Ayeka was already shaking her head. "The trees would have told me if anything would have been out of the ordinary, where a person can travel along their limbs. Nature cannot lie."

"Then we have a conundrum." Washu opened her computer up and put in all the known variables that they had taken into account. "He didn't fly, leave on foot, or travel by the trees. So, if not anyone of those ways, how did he leave?"

Everyone was stumped. Even the computer, which knew about as much as Washu knew, wasn't forthcoming on any type of answer. The voice that spoke from the back of the cave was one they were not expecting. "He left as a Shadowen." The voice that spoke was a silk covered knife, cold and sharp, but definitely not afraid.

Meris appeared from the gloom at the back of the cave; not drawing her weapons even though Nazak and Ragland had reached for theirs. She stared at all of them with a callous smirk on her face, a cold whimsical look to her of some private joke being played on all the pale skins. Nazak and Ragland's reactions were nearly simultaneous as they reached for their weapons and moved toward the woman.

"Nazak, Ragland, Stand down." Washu came up next to them and placed a hand to either man's arm. "What do you mean he left as a Shadowen?"

"It would be hard to explain to a non Shadowen just exactly how we travel, but if everything normal has been taken into account, he must have left as a Shadowen." The woman's answer was neither a sign of helping or a denial of help, though Nazak and Ragland once again tried to approach her.

"You were the woman who was with Tom." Ayeka replied smoothly, yet with a cold accusation in her eyes.

"You have yet to learn any manners." The blue skinned woman spoke just as smoothly. Eyes looked back and forth from Meris to Ayeka with wondering with Miz finally taking the initiative.

"If he's not here, then where did he go?" She wasn't about to trust the blue skinned woman, and she held onto her element, ready to summon it in an instant.

Meris seemed to look around the cave and settled her eyes on the spot right near Ayeka. That was where Ayeka was feeling Tom was at, though it was obvious that he wasn't there. Her connection had never played her false before, so it must have been some trick of The Armor that threw her senses off. Meris simply stared at the spot for a brief moment then spoke a cutting remark in a language that none there had heard.

"He has gone to the home of the shadow tribes, the fool." Meris turned and started to walk into the shadows in the deeper part of the cave, only to have a dagger bounce off the wall in front of her.

"I missed deliberately, Chaltha." Ragland already had a second dagger out, prepared to throw it. "I won't miss if you take another step."

"Running away won't help you." Miz had summoned up her own versions of daggers, water knives floating in the air and reflecting the ambient light coming from the entrance of the cave.

"Fools." Meris spoke accusingly then turned to look at them all. "He's walked into a city of swords and daggers from every conceivable attacking position, and you prevent me from going to help him."

"Why should we trust you?" Washu asked, and Ragland scoffed.

"Trust that she'll put a blade in our backs when we're not watching for her. That's something ingrained in her blood." Ragland spat and Meris clenched her hands.

"I have no time for you fools." Meris went to turn away and Ragland raised his hand again. "Don't you understand that I'm looking for him as well? Ask the woman there. She knows I search for him." She pointed at Ayeka then began tapping her foot as she wrapped her arms in front of herself.

"Ayeka hesitated for a second, then nodded once. "She came disguised as a simple woman, asking where The Possessor could be found. Once the attack began, she disappeared."

"How convenient." Ragland tensed, readying for a fatal attack.

"I'm going with her." Jason stepped forward and everyone, even Meris, looked surprised. "I can't be killed by her, no matter what she may try. I can go with no threat to my life."

"Boy, think this through." Ragland tried to talk some sense to Jason but Nazak forestalled him.

"We are out of options, Ragland." Nazak turned to face him and he explained. "We have reached the trails end and our quarry has disappeared. We must now rely on a tracker, someone who can follow where we cannot."

"It's madness you speak of, Nazak." Ragland wasn't about to be dissuaded. "She will end up killing us."

"If she had wanted us dead, all she would have had to do is make us think we were all shadow tribesmen." Nazak looked at the woman with a considering look. "We would have killed each other never knowing the truth." Nazak stepped forward with Jason. "I will go with you as well. My blades are yours to use."

Everyone but Miz stepped forward and offered their services. "A priestess of Mt. Muldoon does not help her enemies."

"You're not helping anyone, this is a rescue mission." Washu bit off at Miz for being pig headed, but Miz refused to budge.

"You were looking for your friend, correct? The fire priestess?" Ayeka looked at Miz with a cool look. When Miz nodded, Ayeka continued. "He has gone to find her, and he thinks that she is in danger."

"Now I know I'm being lied to." Miz glared at all of them. "They hate each other."

"If you were fated to die and take everyone with you, even your loved ones, wouldn't you 'hate' them too?" The emphasis on hate was obvious and Miz considered for a short moment.

"I am leaving." Meris turned and strode toward the shadows, leaving the water priestess behind.

"All right." Miz gave in. "I'll come as well, but let it be said that this is a suicide mission."

"Death comes for us eventually, It's just a matter if you meet it on your feet, or cowering in the dark." Meris spoke aloud as she stepped forward and placed her hands to the shadows, opening a path for all of them.

-

Shaela felt ripped asunder; the assault not only on her mind, but the torture techniques used by the Shadowen leader had taken their toll on her. She had shamed herself by screaming in pain, but she had given them nothing. It wasn't like she had known much in the first place as their questions had been more directed about The Armor than they had been about Tom. She hung limply from her restraints, slices in her flesh bleeding small rivulets down toward the floor as she breathed raggedly.

"She is a resilient woman." Kagato spoke admiringly. He gripped her hair and tugged her face back up into view. "I could almost come to like such a spirit as this person."

"She has told us nothing we didn't know already." Galus was not happy, his best techniques not being able to do more than pull one or two tidbits of information from her. "We should kill her soon, before she calls for help."

"I thought you had faith that your people couldn't be found." Kagato smiled a snide look at him.

"A priestess has never been brought here before today." Galus was feeling very nervous of this woman. She had great power, maybe too great for him to subdue. She would have to be killed if this was true.

"Very well, Galus. Since you fear for your life so much, I will accommodate you." Kagato snapped his fingers and Katsuhiko stepped forward. "There is always the princess to question, after all."

Katsuhiko stepped in front of Shaela and reached with his right hand, grabbing her by the throat. Shaela gasped as inhuman strength pressed down on her neck, squeezing off all air going into her body. She thrashed and flailed weakly, even attempting to kick at her murderer, and gained nothing but less breath and fading eyesight. She wanted to weep for the futility of what had happened to her as her eyesight started going black all over.

The hand that held her was violently taken away from her and she inhaled sweet tasting air as both eyesight and sound started to filter into her oxygen deprived mind. There was a fight going on, and someone was growling like an animal, speaking in rough barks and shouts of anger. She blinked her eyes as she coughed, tears pooling in her eyes making it even harder to see. She could hear the voice of the Shadowen leader calling for aid as two people fought nearby.

She looked carefully, straining her eyesight to clear and saw that Tom was grappling with the Juridian with part of his face missing, a dark black armor covering Tom's chest as a white armor covered the other man's. Tom took an elbow to his face and was then kicked in his stomach, keeling him over as the other man created a weapon over Tom's back. Shaela yelled out to Tom, trying to warn him, and then Tom came back up and impaled his arm through the white armor into the man's chest. His hand exploded out the man's back, blood and tissue spraying in a messy display.

"Don't ever touch her again, you son of a bitch!" Tom pulled his arm free and threw his left hand forward toward the man. From his palm exploded a black orb roughly the size of the white armored man, engulfing him in a dark sphere of energy. There was a brief flare of light from inside the orb, and then the orb disappeared, leaving no trace of the man anywhere.

Tom shuddered once, and then looked to Shaela. "Are you hurt?" Tom walked over to her, taking the rope by her wrists in hand and ripping it to shreds.

Shaela was going to answer till she was free of her bindings. Her legs buckled and she yelped in surprise, as her legs wouldn't hold her weight. Tom caught hold of her, picking her up into his arms and looking down at her concerned.

"I'm perfectly fine. Let go of me." Shaela protested, squirming in his arms weakly.

"You can hardly stand." Tom was looking around the room then jumped effortlessly from the floor to a pathway above the main floor. Shaela felt her stomach lurch and grabbed hold of Tom's neck. He took Shaela over to a wall of stalactites and placed her inside of a small depression. He placed his hand over the entrance and Shaela saw some mist settle over the entrance of the opening.

"As long as you stay in there, no one will be able to see you." Tom was looking down at her, and she had the sudden impression that he was about to leave her.

"What about you?" Tom looked over his shoulder, down a passageway that was beginning to fill with Shadowen.

"I'm going to kill someone." Tom stalked toward the passageway, the yelling of the approaching men rolling over both of them. Tom waded into their midst with hands flashing, disarming one man as he broke his neck, then using the weapon against the foes before him.

Shaela tried to rise from Tom had placed her, but her legs and arms wouldn't move of their own accord. She could only watch as warrior after warriors threw themselves against him and he slaughtered each and every one of them. He didn't look normal anymore, not like a human would look standing in the sun and laughing at life. It was as if he had stepped into a world that was devoid of meaning or reason, a world that shouldn't exist. He moved forward as bone and sinew was cleaved by his hand and disappeared in the shadows.

-

Meris stepped from the shadows, leading the rescue group after her as they entered the fortress of her old home. She had been gone only a short time and already she could feel the changes to this place. People rushed through the passageways, heading off at the call to arms to wherever the intruders would be found. If they were rushing off, then he was here for sure. Her Tok-Ran must be causing such mischief that it would be impossible not to run into an armed group of warriors.

"Where are we?" Ayeka gripped her arms and shuddered either from the cold, or from the dislike of their new area.

"Deep underground, the home of the Shadow Nation." Meris spoke matter of factly. "There is a battle going on here."

"I can feel him." Ayeka inadvertently took a step forward, toward the exit of their room. "He is fighting somewhere above us, and he is angry."

Nazak and Ragland gripped their sword hilts tightly, having never sheathed them since their meeting with Meris. "Mah Alousch needs us, Nazak." Ragland edged to the entranceway out into a darkened corridor.

"You, shadow girl." Washu called and had a glare returned at her.

"My name is Meris, flame hair." True, introductions had been glossed over, but no one talked to her as she had been addressed.

"What pathway will take us closest to the surface?" Washu was already beginning to plot their cave and depth from sea level into her computer, extrapolating how far underground they were.

"Leave this cave and head left, follow the smell of fresh air and you'll arrive at the closest place to the surface." Meris had already planned on leaving them here to fend for themselves. She wanted to reach her Tok-Ran first, and these pale skins would slow her down. They could be best used as a distraction.

"We don't separate for any reason, Jason takes point, Nazak and Ragland have rear guard. We're not staying for the party, we get what we came for and we leave."

Jason had already stepped out into the corridor, guns ready as he looked to his right, then to his left. "Clear, Let's move." He called as he went forward down the pathway where he had seen the running people. Miz and Ryoko peered up the left and right passageways, guarding them as everyone filed out before falling in behind them.

They might survive; it would be hard to say. Meris wished them luck then headed up the left path from the mouth of the cave they had all occupied just a moment before, heading for the sounds of battle.

-

Tom was looking for Galus. He had seen the look on his face as the life was slowly squeezed out of Shaela, and he vowed that the man would not outlive this day. Shadowen poured outward from every entrance, every crevice, even materializing out of thin air as they dropped their invisibility and attempted to take him. With him at his top speed and with The Armor warning him of the unseen attacks coming from out of his peripherals, there wasn't anything anyone could do to catch him unaware.

He hadn't listened to The Armor one time, and someone had nearly slipped a blade between his lower back and his pelvis. They were sprayed across the wall, the unfortunate victim of a backhand that had plastered them across 15 feet of wall. Tom always kept Galus in view, if just a slight view dancing between opponents as Galus retreated down the connecting pathways, heading for the more open catacombs above them.

Tom wasn't going to let him get away, no matter how many people he was going to have to kill. Enough people had died at the hands of both The Bugrom and The Shadowen, someone had to do something, or everyone was going to die. This wasn't about vengeance or retribution, this was about survival. Tom slipped into the first adjoining tunnel, walking into a giant room with both stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. It was like the giant cave had sprung teeth and was preparing to chew on him.

The sound of multiple arrows being fired echoed across the cavern, and he couldn't see a single one of them. They were ambushing him, illusioning the arrows so that he couldn't see them to stop them. Tom leapt forward and rolled, hoping to get under the shots before they got too close to the ground. The sound of sizzling came from behind him as the stone walls and floors began to pit from the projectiles lethal toxicity.

Tom was to his feet and running as fast as he could between the rock spires, weaving in between them as the sounds of more shots came after him. Galus' voice called above the sound of launching arrows. "Kill him, Kill him now!"

The Armor begged for release, and Tom threw his hands outward from his body to either side of him. A wave of force rushed outward from his body, forcing even the air out of the room as it pulverized rock and person alike, spreading away from Tom in an ever-growing circle. Tom saw Galus with a look of dread on his face as dust and debris flew through the air, then Tom launched himself after him, Galus disappearing through a rock face that rippled with his passing.

"Galus!" Tom yelled after the fleeing form. "You can't run forever!" He passed through the wall and down the single pathway; bloodlust set in his mind as he followed after.

-

Miz fought off a third wave of opponents as the sound of destruction echoed down to them, the force of the wind blowing her hair haphazardly along with a braided rope that lay shredded at the base of one of the rock outcroppings. Shreds of red cloth the only color they had seen since coming down into the shadow world, except for blue skin and flashing steel. Shaela had been here, maybe was still nearby as she looked around.

"Up there." Ayeka pointed unerringly from where the wind had come from, the sounds of rocks sifting downward to them evidence that Tom lay somewhere that direction.

Ragland was a bloody mess, face and various other places splashed with gore not his own, and that wasn't counting the other places he could invariably be hurt at. Nazak had fared a little better, if only because of his youth and reflexes. Jason had always taken the brunt of each attacking force, throwing himself into a melee headfirst, and then battering anyone still left standing.

Washu and Miz had been virtually unscathed throughout their trek, Ryoko having a discoloration just below her eye for a near fatal stab, Jason's clothing was showing the worse for wear, but he seemed to be faring well none the less. As for herself, she had taken a shallow slash by her side under her arm as she had been trying to keep all the enemies in sight on the last battle. Even for so small a cut, it was taking her strength from her.

Jason was passing a cluster of rock when he turned around and aimed right at the rock face. A hand was reaching out from the rocks, one that was covered in a copper colored metal. Jason reached for the hand and while keeping his aim, helped an unsteady Shaela from her hiding spot.

"It's about time somebody showed up to rescue me." Shaela called down from where Jason held her.

Ayeka climbed upward on the rampway leading to the second floor, meeting with Shaela and Jason as he was bringing her down. She's all right, just fatigued." Ayeka called to everyone after a quick check.

"I am not all right," Shaela was in a temper as Jason released her and she unsteadily walked down herself. "I'm going to hurt him for leaving me behind."

Everyone looked as if they had caught their breath all at once. "He was here?" Jason asked then looked back up the pathway leading to the upper floors.

All hell broke loose as Shadowen flooded in from both above and the halls on the main floor. Screams of outrage and anger turned everyone outward and chaos ensued as everyone fought for their lives. Ragland took three men with him before an arrow from the upper pathway took him in the face, Jason returning fire a moment too late. Miz and Shaela enveloped as many of the stragglers as they could in their elements, causing as much significant damage as they could before they were simply too close to deal with. Ryoko and Nazak were using various swords or projectiles as they could, daggers for Nazak and energy bolts from Ryoko.

Miz was just turning to take care of Ragland, checking for any signs of life when she felt something slide into her body from behind. She couldn't gasp the shock of what had happened too great to comprehend at the moment. Her element reacted instinctually, blood in her foe heeding the call of water and bursting the man in a spray of death as his blood burst from his veins and out of his body.

Washu grabbed Miz as she fell forward, catching her ungainly as she fell to the floor. "Ayeka, End this!" Washu yelled over the fighting as she turned her computer's attention to Miz.

Ayeka felt for their core beings, their mental energies that surged throughout their beings, reaching out to all of them at once and simply turning them off one at a time. It wasn't exactly what they deserved, but a few moments of unconsciousness would help them escape from their predicament. Every Shadowen seemed to lock in a moment of frozen uncertainty, and then they fell boneless to the ground, their eyes unseeing as their brains disengaged.

"Miz?" Washu was scanning for the wound that had felled her as she called to the priestess. "Talk to me, Miz."

"I'm…still here…Washu." A little blood was trickling from the edge of her mouth, as she looked around sightlessly. Her gaze roamed across a section of the ceiling and stopped as she pointed weakly up at it. "He is there…" her voice was weak and her eyes unfocused, "He is crying…in his soul…I can…. Feel it…"

Ayeka looked up to where Miz was staring then looked down at Miz sadly. "She is dying Washu, or else she would not be able to see The Armor."

Washu's computer found the wound and estimated the severity of it. "We have to get out of here." Washu looked up at Ayeka. "You have to continue without us."

"I'm going with her." Shaela stared hard at the calm look of Ayeka. "Even you need someone to watch your back." Ayeka nodded once then bent down next to the water priestess.

"What do you see, Miz?" Ayeka asked as Miz continued to look upward through everyone and everything.

Miz wet her lips, then continued. "He is still there, and there is something around him…" her eyes crinkled as she tried to see it clearer, "He is still alive, still sane…" Miz took a ragged breath and cough, then continued, "I see a hand reaching for him…from the darkness around him…A woman's hand…"

Ayeka stood up and looked at the ceiling with a hard look. Everyone else looked confused and Miz murmured something incomprehensible.

"I'm going." Ayeka turned and left at a run, making Shaela call after her and move as well.

"Nazak, carry her. Jason, Ryoko, guard us as best as you can." Washu looked sadly down at Ragland and said a farewell to him as she began leading the survivors for the surface.

"Goodbye, my friend." Nazak spoke as he followed after Washu. "May your enemies always quake with fear in memory of your name."

-

Tom rushed into the final room, losing sight of Galus once more. There was a throne entrenched in the wall halfway up; making it always above the heads of anyone that entered. No signs of any entrances or exits could be seen from here, though if it was like any other throne room, there had to be exits somewhere. The sounds of feet following him had persisted for the last two hallways and he was getting sure that someone was stalking him from the shadows.

Tom turned and waited for them, having no one else to lock his menace on. He would kill everything, wash it away in a sea of blood. They deserved nothing better than to die and die and die once again. He was about read to unleash blistering energy back up the entrance, but that wasn't good enough. He wanted to se the disbelief on their face when he sent them into darkness from which they'd never wake.

Tom raised his hand to the entrance as a boot stepped into the dim light of the luminescent fungus on the walls, and with the boot came a face he wasn't expecting. Meris appeared from the dark hallway, a sword covered in blood in her hand as she surveyed the room she entered. Her eyes passed over Tom as she swept the room of any foes hiding anywhere, then returned back to Tom with a warm smile on her face.

"You are a whirlwind of death that any child could follow, Tok-Ran." She had not placed her sword away, and she had not moved any closer to him, which spoke of her preparing for more dangers to come.

"What the hell are you doing here, Meris?" Tom dropped his hand, the urge to kill something dropping to a low simmer in him as his eyes returned to looking around the room. "Your going to get killed down here, you know that?"

"A Mor-Deth fears nothing, Tok-Ran." She glanced at him again and stepped closer to him. "You will learn this eventually."

Tom's skin crawled as The Armor sighed slowly. The Armor had never done that and he soon found out why it had. From out of nothing unfolded a man pale of skin and robes of dark green. The Pince-nez balanced on his nose made him appear shrewd, but the glow of his green eyes was all the identity Tom needed.

"Kagato!" Tom launched at him, his hands covering in a shade of darkness as Talons formed where his fingertips ended.

Kagato ducked under him and backhanded him upwards, sending him bouncing off the ceiling with the most casual of motions. He waited as Tom fell back downward and pushed forward with a flick of his hand, sending Tom zooming back into the wall next to the doorway. Rock cracked under the force of Tom's impact and his ears rang with the force of his sudden stop.

"Child, you'll need more years experience than that to try and kill me." Kagato stepped forward toward Tom as Meris rushed at him herself. Kagato's swat clipped her and sent her sprawling behind him as he walked past her.

He grasped Tom by his throat and pulled him from the wall, rock falling to the floor behind him as he was pulled free. "I told you the next time we met, I would take The Armor from you." The Armor sang in joy as it tried to leave Tom, while Tom was trying with everything he had to keep hold of its dark energies. "Give up your useless struggling and submit to Tokimi's will."

Tom grit his teeth as Kagato gripped harder into his throat. "I…will…never…submit…to…you!" He was getting stronger as The Armor slipped from Tom's grasp; his eyes were seeing spots as the air was cut off from him.

"No, I very much doubt you will submit to me." Kagato was grinning triumphantly as shadows raced up his arms and pooled in his chest. "You were not meant to submit, only to die!"

The smile slipped from his face for a brief instant as a sword pierced through his body from behind, causing him to loosen his hold on Tom. Kagato turned, wrenching the weapon from the woman's hand as Meris sprang back and reached for her dagger at her waist.

"No one may kill my Tok-Ran while I live!" Meris was preparing to attack again, even if it was futile.

"Loyalty in one so beautiful deserves a special gift." Kagato vanished from where he stood, appearing behind Meris faster than even Tom could see. He placed his hand to her back and smiled evilly as he spoke, "You may go before him."

"**NO**!" Tom yelled as he reached out to them.

Meris shuddered once, a look of disbelief washing over her face as something green rose from her chest. There wasn't any pain, something she was sure there would be when the time came. It pulled free of her and her body felt weightless as she fell forward onto her knees. She stared forward, unable even to move her arms, looking at the heartache that was already covering his face as he watched. She smiled weakly at him, and raised a hand toward him, reaching out to him to comfort him.

"Tom…" Meris called out softly to him before she fell forward, all life gone from her body.

Tom felt cold, unconnected, he wasn't sure if he was feeling at all. He could hear however, and all that encompassed his eyes was a glowing green sword and a laughing face.

"Was she important to you, Tom?" Kagato banished the sword with a thought and pointed at him. "Follow her into Death!" A lance of energy shot out at Tom and sputtered out before it could reach him, the victorious look on Kagato's face disappearing.

Tom lifted up bonelessly, his chest pulling the rest of him upright as his head lolled forward from the awkward movement. An echo began to pull from everywhere and no where, a sound of anguish that only a millions souls screaming out in misery could copy and echoed away into nothingness. Tom stepped forward limply and the rocks trembled. He took a second step forward and the room shook. He took a third step, and the world groaned in agony. Kagato flashed away in green brilliance, fleeing to wherever he had come from as Tom slumped before Meris and cradled her head to him.

It was his fault; he was to blame for her death. He couldn't even save her life, a person who was more like him than anyone. She had never asked him to be anything more than what he had been and she died for something even he didn't believe in. Tom wept and from his eyes flowed rivulets of red.

"I don't care anymore." Tom sank into the darkness in his heart. "I want it all to end." The dark enveloped his mind and his heart froze. "Make it all go away." He couldn't feel anything coming from his body. "Make it end, this endless misery." He wanted to die.

The Armor hesitated as it observed him, studied him, debated him. It had heard of this, this thing called 'mourning'. It had felt something like this so very long ago, something that it had forgotten, this thing that was alien and foreign to it yet it had felt this. Then it swept over him, its full power unchecked, and It became manifest, reaching through Tom's body and becoming whole.

* * *

**Ha Ha, Two deaths in the storyline. I promise more to come, so start hating the author, I already hate myself. Tom has forsaken his humanity and morality to be a killer, and specifically, to be Kagato's killer. Will he hunt down the elusive man with green eyes, or will Ayeka and Shaela catch up to him before that happens?**

**Will Miz survive, or will she be the next victim of the author? Will any of them survive to escape from the planet? Only time, and I, may tell... T.T.F.N.**


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**Bwa ha ha ha ha! Character Death happening in this chapter as well, I'll kill them all eventually... notices you all looking at me strangely then clears his throat**

**Welcome back! Here is Chapter Seventeen of the story and once again Tom has become the very demon that the Juridians knew he would be. Shaela and Asuka chase after him while Washu and company try to do their best to escape to the surface. Maybe I'll kill two more people today? chuckles darkly**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with El Hazard or Tenchi series. I only own Tom, Jason, Nazak, and the Armor of Darkness**

**Warning: About halfway down the chapter is some heavy ecchi. Viewer Discretion is advised, but then again, this is a rated M story. You shouldn't be reading this if you are under 18, as per FanFiction's rules.

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Chapter 17

**Broken Hearts**

Tom held what was left of Meris in his arms. She looked so peaceful, happy to be free of this misery of a world, this existence. Tom felt something-wet running down from his eyes, yet he couldn't comprehend that it was tears coming from him. He didn't want her to go without him, yet she had forged on without him, sent on by Kagato and his intentions.

Black lightning shot downwards from the ceiling, making Galus pull back from his perch he had hidden, and then look disbelieving to the ceiling. Living shadows disconnected from their moorings and flowed like water to Tom, covering him in their protective peace. The sound of the wind blowing through the tunnels picked up from out of nowhere, yet any rustling of cloth, or smell of fresh air could be defined or even guessed at from its point of origin. Tom disappeared under a roiling cauldron of emptiness, his hand the last to disappear as it sank into the bottom of a sea of shadows.

Galus stood and watched in disbelief, never seeing anything like this before. This was beyond mortal comprehension, and was not only fearful, but also awe-inspiring. The shadows stilled like water after a storm, no shimmer or ripple seen as everything went still. Flashes of brilliance could be seen from time to time, as something rose to the surface of what could only be described as 'dark water'.

His body was no longer human, there were still traces of man left in it, but Tom was forever gone in what it had become. The body looked reptilian in more than one place, scales being the mainstay of his skin in onyx could be made into a leathery hide. Talons and claws had replaced fingers and toes, fangs had replaced teeth, and ebony wings played downward from his back as the black essence dripped from them and him.

His body had been totally altered, not just his outer appearance. His bones were all wrong in his legs with his knees bending backwards as that of some demons would. His muscle mass had been increased and even his size had been augmented to resemble some amalgamation of leviathan and human cross bred. He lay prone on his back as he floated upward, his eyes closed and his body limp as if newly born and unaware.

Galus waited no time in taking advantage of a weak target, setting arrow to bow and launching a strike at the body. To his horror, the arrow flew into the body without any discernible disruption to the body. It had simply flown into his chest right about a normal man's heart would be and disappeared, not even exiting out of its back. Galus took a second arrow out and fired again, this time of hitting the brain through the jaw. Once again, the arrow flew into the body and disappeared, devoured by the creature.

Wings snapped outward, brushing the walls with the tips as the body twitched convulsively. Its rising had stopped and it pivoted till it looked as if it were standing on its back legs, now level with Galus as its eyes opened. Milky white with a bloodstained red floating through the white, veins stood out as a blazing gold cat slit of an iris locked onto Galus.

They froze as they locked eyes, Galus to scared to move, The Armor in a more considering fashion. It was broken abruptly when The Armor roared at Galus in a beastial bellow; a human scream mixed with an outraged demon's voice. Galus turned and fled too scared to look back, and The Armor gave him a three second head start. It then tore through the rock opening as if it were so much paper and gave chase to his prey.

* * *

"We are in a very bad situation and need to get the FUCK OUT OF HERE!" Jason fired back into a second opening that led off from their tunnel, trying to get out while they still breathed. Washu was leading as best as she could, Miz's slumped body hanging over her shoulder. Nazak still had a sword left on him and he was doing what he could to fight them a path forward, though with all the illusions overlapping themselves in his vision, it was getting hard to tell what was real and what was going to kill him.

"Nazak! Switch with Ryoko!" Washu yelled over the recharge of Jason's gun as it cycled another energy shot to full power. "Clear us a path out of here! I don't care if you have to shoot through a wall to do it!"

Nazak sheathed and ducked as Ryoko fired energy shots over his head, letting fly with an attack when she was clear. As Ryoko disengaged from Miz, blood started to flow freely from her side again and a small gasp of pain came from her mouth.

"She's not going to last much longer if we can't get her out of here, Washu!" Nazak picked Miz up and cradled her to him, stanching the blood with his own body as he pressed her to him.

"We've got bigger problems than that!" Washu's computer, which had been floating placidly in front of her since they had come down here, had begun to elicit flashes and shrieks for the last few minutes. Tom's image was no longer represented on the monitor anymore as a metamorphosis had occurred that had altered him beyond human. The machine was taking in every new detail about this new form, and was shorting out from the informational flood.

"What about Shaela and Ayeka?" Ryoko was shooting indiscriminately at everything and anything, sometimes shooting through an illusion, sometimes hitting something a little fleshier than a rock wall.

"We're in deep enough without worrying about anyone else!" Washu brought up a depth gauge to see how much further they had to go before reaching the surface. "200 feet, Ryoko! Think you can shoot through that?"

"Just Watch!" Ryoko raised her hands almost directly overhead and blasted several shots into the ceiling, pulverizing rock into dirt in seconds. The roof shuddered once, then with a roar, collapsed downward to shine deliciously warm sunlight on everyone.

"Everyone out!" Washu began scrambling up the collapsed rocks, helping Nazak balance himself and Miz as they climbed. Ryoko turned and was trying to help Jason, who was having none of it.

"Just get out!" Jason called to her as he fired once more. The gun didn't try to recharge this time, having spent all its energy on the very last shot. Jason pitched it back down the tunnel and looked at Ryoko.

"Get clear so I can close the entranceway!" Ryoko was trying to pull Jason out, but Jason pushed none too lightly against Ryoko.

"I've got the entrance covered." Jason muttered to himself as a new wave of calling came from down the tunnel.

Jason clenched his fists tightly and looked to either rock wall on either side of him. With as much strength as he could muster, he punched the walls separately; imbedding his hands into both then pulled each hand free. He then punched higher up on the walls and did the same thing as he began to undermine the foundation to the entrance. With the force of his sixth punch, the entrance collapsed downward in a cloud of rubble and debris.

"I'm losing her, Washu!" Nazak had laid Miz down on the ground and was trying to gauze the wound in her side with torn strips of his shirt.

Jason clambered out of the hole and over to where everyone had taken a spot around Miz. She was deathly pale; sweat beading on her forehead as her breathing came in short gasps. The blood was still coming from her side even stanched as it was, not slowing even against the pressure being applied to it.

"Ryoko, take her back to the refit depot. There should be some medic supplies left there that could be of use." Ryoko reached for Miz but was stopped by a raised hand from the wounded woman.

"It's alright, Washu." Miz swallowed with difficulty as she tried to speak. "I wouldn't survive the flight there."

"Please, Miz," Washu was talking quietly for her as she tried to persuade Miz, "You've got to go back."

"You know as well as I do that my heart was nicked, Washu." Miz smiled weakly at the red headed woman as Washu avoided looking at her. "Even your skill with healing couldn't save me from that."

"The Juridians then," Jason offered, trying to keep her hopes up, "They could save you."

"They could try to save me, if it were possible." Miz nodded then coughed again. "Ayeka was with us remember? She could do nothing but watch." Miz struggled weakly, removing the ring from her finger and handed it to Washu. "Promise me that you will hand this to Afera. She'll know what to do with it."

"I promise, Miz." Washu was crying now, knowing she was never going to talk the water priestess out of her decision.

Miz smiled softly, and sighed once, her breath coming to her slowly. "I lived a good life," Miz took a second smaller breath, "didn't I?" She went limp, her head lolling to the side as a trickle of blood escaped from the corner of her mouth.

Washu stood up and turned away from the body, not sure how to answer or even if she was in the right to answer. Jason looked heartbroken, losing a close companion as what Miz had become. Ryoko bowed her head, a sad look on her face, while Nazak spoke a few words over her body. The sounds of rocks being moved out of the way brought everyone's attention to the hole in the ground.

"We leave," Nazak pulled his sword out and prepared for an attack at any moment, "or we will be joining the water priestess."

"Agreed." Washu brought her computer back up and set directions. "Jason, take point. Ryoko, cover us. We need to get out of here."

* * *

Ayeka had become separated from the rest of the group, and was now stuck with the fire priestess known as Shaela. The fire priestess was disheveled and bore the look of one who had been nearly taken advantage of, but didn't complain or look scared as she bared her fire gauntlet back the way they had come. She would have to reassess her thoughts about this woman.

With her power back, she had a duty to perform. The feel of The Armor was like a disease in these tunnels and very hard to locate, but the feel of his mind was like a beacon to her. He was somewhere above them, three floors up and moving quickly after someone that he hated. His anger was like a disease that was feeding back down to her, making her despise anything and anyone that came into her sight, especially anyone with blue skin.

More of the warriors appeared in front of her and she didn't give them time enough to draw near and attempt to strike. She thought, and unseen forces flung her foes back the way they had come to bounce off the far wall. She would have to control herself closely from now on; his anger trickling into her could mean that something else was trickling into her as well. She felt a hand touch her shoulder and she rounded on her assailant only to see the fire priestess looking at her concerned.

"I said, 'Are you O.K.?' You don't look so good." Shaela knew she had nearly been attacked, but she wasn't about to acknowledge it right now while they were deep in enemy territory.

"I'm sorry." Ayeka blushed self consciously as she realized what she had about done, and just on instinct. "It's his mind. He's very upset, infuriated."

"All because of that woman dying made him do all this?" It was evident that Tom had come through here, anything that had been in his way had been incinerated; everything else had been crushed into the wall, too meager for him to be concerned about.

"It's a little hard to explain." Ayeka wasn't even sure she understood it herself. He had an attachment with her, that was obvious by the emotional damage he was going through, but even he wasn't sure if he had cared about her as more than an acquaintance.

"Enlighten me." Shaela had wanted to know a lot about what was going on in his head, and the only one who had any idea wasn't very forthcoming. Ayeka looked at her and seemed to come to a decision.

"This isn't going to be very pleasant." Ayeka said and placed her hand to Shaela's forehead.

Shaela was wondering what she was talking about till a burst of sensation flooded into her head. Thoughts whirled by and emotions raged within her, two separate entities taking up lodging in her head. She cried out in surprise then in shock as they settled into places in the back of her mind, background noises that were like bite-me bugs needling away at her. The first was a roiling ball of loathing and anger, more animalistic as a beast than as a human was. The second ball was calm on the surface, but at the center of it, the first ball's emotions were beginning to form there as well.

"Now you know what I'm feeling." Ayeka turned away from Shaela, the slightest trace of regret coming to her from the second ball.

Shaela looked up and to her right. She could feel him there, as if the walls had disappeared and been replaced with air. She could even have pointed to him and told you exactly what color of clothing he was wearing. It was all right there for her, nothing held back from his mind as his very thoughts and emotions flooded out of him like a broken dam. The blue skinned woman was there in his arms, and he was crying over her, for her, and he didn't understand anything anymore.

Ayeka went to step forward into the corridor ahead and Shaela called out to her. "That way will take too long. There's a quicker way." Shaela was peering back out into the previous gallery they had left, looking upward. With an absent thought to her gauntlet, Shaela jumped upward with flame wreathed around her, bounding from the scant outcropping of rock upward to the area where Tom was near.

Ayeka followed, lifting herself with her power and landing next to the fire priestess, who was looking around for passageways after Tom. He was very close by, the feel of wrongness making Ayeka's Armor whimper in pain. Just beyond that wall in front of them, and they would be able to see him.

Ayeka raised her hand and pointed at the wall, sending forth a blazing beam of light into it and melting it into slag. Beyond the wall was a scene of nightmares that made Ayeka want to be sick. He was standing in the center of a chamber, a throne raised in the far wall making this some kind of audience chamber for their leader. Tom stood in the center of the room, mowing all and anyone that would come at him down with his claws or batting them back with his wings.

He was bathed in blood, ichor and intestine hanging from a shoulder as a hand not his own could be seen reaching out from his back. Rent flesh and broken bodies were strewn around the room, making the scene of something out of damnation as a demon played with, and broke each and every one of his toys methodically. There wasn't any kind of humanity coming from the bundle from him, only an unquenchable disgust and hatred for everything. He didn't care what he destroyed anymore. Only that he tore it from existence with his own hands.

Shaela walked toward him, behind him, she doubted he could see her. She was within arms reach of him when the last of the Shadowen had been ripped in half, shredded into strips as he turned and brought his claw down toward her. She didn't move, didn't dodge as she reached out to him not with her hand, but with her mind. He stopped inches from her body, His claws spattering blood onto her exposed skin. She called out to him with her mind, looking for any trace of him that was still left in all that anger.

Ayeka could feel it, a swelling of malevolence aimed at her and Shaela from Tom, or what he had become. She wasn't sure she could defend herself and Shaela at the same time; he had become stronger than maybe the entire ship full of Juridians. The thing howled a fetid breath at Shaela and Ayeka, and Shaela didn't move or cringe as she reached out to him again with her heart.

"Y…You shouldn't have come." The thing spoke to them, hot tears leaking from its eyes as its muscles strained in its arm.

"I'm not leaving you here by yourself." Shaela spoke calmly to him. She was scared out of her mind and wanted to flee and not look back, but she owed him a lot, and she wouldn't be able to repay him if she didn't start here.

The thing looked up past Shaela to Ayeka, and a gurgling moan came from its throat. "Juridian…" It spoke with hatred and in grief, the two sides of Tom mixing together. "Please, slay me…" It pulled its clawed hand back from Shaela and stood up; rearing back on its hind legs till it stood nearly 17 foot tall. "End this hell and kill me."

Ayeka looked bitterly up at it. She could feel him wrestling for control in the back of her mind, fighting back the need to destroy and begging to be set free. She summoned her staff and edged the top half with a blade two-foot long.

"Stand down, Ayeka." Shaela had turned around and faced Ayeka, her body beginning to glow red with inner fire that was building up.

"I am Juridian, priestess." Ayeka brought her weapon to the ready. "My duty is to kill The Armor."

"You know that's not the truth," Shaela brought her hand up and presented her fist toward Ayeka, preparing to defend him if need be, "You know that The Armor never truly dies. I can see it in your mind."

"Your right, The Armor never truly dies." Ayeka felt sick to her stomach, she didn't want to do this. "It is still my duty to send The Armor back to limbo for now."

"Then you'll send it over my dead body." Shaela began to bring all her flame energy into one point on her gauntlet, intending a one shot kill if it was necessary. She didn't think she'd have a chance in hell, but she wasn't going to stand by and let him die for nothing.

"Shaela," Tom's voice was becoming clearer from the throat of the beast behind her, "Please, don't interfere."

"Tom, I like you a lot," Shaela's gauntlet fairly glowed with repressed fire energy that wanted to leap free, and it was getting hard to control, "but if you don't shut up, I'm liable to slap the taste out of your mouth."

The groan that came out of Tom was heartrending and painful to listen to. A single pulse of energy escaped off his form, the only sign of distress he was going through, then his body exploded in released energy that threw Shaela forward into Ayeka. For a tangled moment, Shaela and Ayeka wondered if they were dead before extracting themselves from each other. Looking back to where the beast had stood, Shaela laughed in joy.

Tom had returned to his original form, though he was holding his head in excruciating pain. The battle with The Armor was always a fierce one for supremacy, but for once, Tom didn't struggle long before he regained his body. He panted weakly, collapsing to his hands and knees before he sat back and cried.

"I couldn't save her," he muttered to himself as he shook with sobs of grief, "I couldn't save her."

Shaela came over to him and took his head in her arms, Tom wrapping his arms around her as he cried his heart out. Ayeka looked on in wonder on how he could fight off The Armor like that. It was believed that when you were possessed, you were doomed to be controlled by The Armor forever, and yet he had fought free of The Armor's control once again. Footsteps sounded from off to their right and Ayeka brought her weapon up in front of her.

Kagato stepped out from the shadowed alcove of a balcony on the floor above them. "That was inconvenient." He mused aloud to everyone to hear him. "I wanted him to wipe out the shadow tribes for me."

"Thrax' Dra!" The yell came from another alcove above them, this time to the left. A blue skinned warrior materialized into existence with a bow pulled to its limits. "My people were just pawns to you, to be used and thrown away like so much Kaffa!"

"You see that your usefulness has come to an end and yet you persist in thinking your going to be a larger stage player than that of a backdrop." Kagato wagged his finger at Galus as he clicked his tongue. "Your arrogance was your own downfall, Galus, if you thought I was going to make you more than a follower."

"Thrax' Dra fo Luth!" Galus released the bow, snapping the string with the sudden release. The arrow shot sure and clean as it leapt from his weapon and embedded itself in Kagato's forehead.

His head didn't even snap backwards from the impact as he reached up and pulled the arrow out. The skin fleshed together as the point left the skin, showing no scar or marking that he had even been hit. "If you're going to kill me, you're going to have to try better than that." Kagato smiled wickedly as his eyes lit up. "Of course, you only get one try with me!"

Galus and balcony disappeared in a greenish light that sprung up out of nowhere. The scream that came from his lips was gone almost in an instant as the light faded away, showing a perfect cut into the wall where the balcony had been. Kagato bowed to the ensemble on the ground floor and spoke one last time before leaving.

"I am hoping to see you all once again in battle. Do try not to disappoint me so much this time."

* * *

Washu led the defeated rescuers back into camp, now at the place where the robotic woman, Ifurita had been destroyed at. She looked around as the rest of the travelers trickled into the surroundings, where the villagers from Floreshtica were helping with what could be done while the far building where the ship had been repaired before was now thrown completely open. Ryoko had been busy since her arrival, having two space travelers helping her; she had begun setting to work on repairing the ships that could travel off world.

Many of the ships had been scavenged for parts to make three of them nearly complete, though only one could be totally complete by this time. The other two had gaping holes in the sides of them, the signs of people working both in and out with as much curiosity as fear evident by how they jerked back from every sound that came from conduits or humming from power packs. Each ship she estimated could probably hold one hundred people comfortably, one hundred fifty if they were careful, two hundred if they liked each other.

Ladders leading under the main floor of the building would lead down into the docking bays underneath the main structure, where the ships were stacked overtop of each other. This facility was to be used in emergencies when the first science outposts had been placed here long ago, back when Washu and Ryoko still had their family. Before the Juridians, before the studies, before even coming to this planet. It had seemed so long ago, maybe it was and she was the only one who seemed to remember. Washu stepped forward toward whatever awaited all of them and resolved to save those she could while she still lived.

* * *

They traveled the underground tunnels for hours, the midday long gone by this time and night probably coming on strongly. Time was indefinite while they were underground; made only worse by the silence that echoed down the bleak passageways. No, that wasn't true, the silence was broken intermittently by the sounds of their feet and their breathing. Even their stomachs growled to them softly which made their hunger even more apparent.

Ayeka helped Tom along, holding him up by one arm whether he needed it or not. Shaela had insisted on leading their entourage since recovering Tom, insisting that she knew the way out as she had led them up many a rising path. Tom had said little and looked to be staring off into some place that either of them couldn't see, which made both women worry. Even the bond they were all sharing now was edged with worry, though Tom's bond had gone mute as it revealed nothing of what he was thinking or feeling for the longest time.

The worst was when the pathways had ended abruptly in rock, the ascent stopping as if someone had simply cut off the rise and given up. They had returned the way they had come, going to the next ascending pathway only to have the path cut off in another sheet of rock. The air was stale in these pockets, where nothing but dust had circulated for who knows how long. Finally, giving up the search when their strength had reached their limits, they retreated back to a fairly sizable den of a room and stepped inside.

There were furnishings here, mats and crockery, wrapped bundles of bread that were to moldy to eat, and the most thankful part only one entrance into or out of the room. Tom stumbled over to has far away from the doorway he could get, then wrapped his arms around himself as he sat hunched and stared back the way they had come. Shaela found what could be crudely called a firepit, and gathering what few things would burn, ignited them with a simple gesture. Ayeka did something a bit more important, placing a barrier in front of their way in or out, one that looked like a sheet of glass.

"There," She spoke as she came back and sat down close by, "That will keep anyone from visiting us anytime soon."

Shaela could feel the thought of what Ayeka had done, a solid illusion to anyone on the outside that made their entrance look like a part of the wall, but something like glass from their side. "Your powers are impressive, Ayeka. I can see why everyone thinks of your people as miracle workers."

"Please speak when you are talking," Ayeka looked at Shaela with a deliberate intonation in her voice, "You have to get used to having us in your head."

Shaela blinked and felt her lips. "I was thinking that?" Even as she spoke, she felt that her lips hadn't moved, yet she had felt like she had spoken.

"It hurts when you yell like that." Tom muttered from where he sat, and winced slightly as he stopped reaching for his temple.

Shaela blushed. This was going to take some practice. "I'm sorry. It's not like I've done this before."

"I have bonded you to us," Ayeka looked over at Tom, then back at Shaela before continuing, "Your every thought and memory is now open to us, just as ours is to you."

Before Shaela could think or even start, Tom spoke to her. "A little privacy would be nice once in awhile, but it's not like we have much of a say in that department, huh?"

"I haven't heard you complain about such things before." Ayeka spoke loftily, as if she had been the reason for that attack. "It would be nice not to be bonded to you as well, now that you mention it."

That wasn't the way she had wanted to say it, and Tom knew it. "Then release me, now while no one else can call you a coward." He stared at her till she turned her eyes from him, receiving only a mocking laugh from Tom.

Tom's head snapped backwards and Ayeka looked over at Shaela who looked angered while Tom rubbed his jaw. "Do you think you can talk civilly now?" She spoke evenly, giving Tom her hottest glare.

"You're not supposed to hit someone like that." Ayeka hissed at Shaela, which earned her a short sniff.

"Like you were doing any better." Shaela spoke smugly, looking righteous with her arms crossed over her chest. She didn't hold that pose for long when suddenly she yelped and grabbed for her butt.

"Be glad that's all you get." Tom rubbed his jaw, working it tenderly from the imagined punch he had received.

"Stop it, both of you." Ayeka was positively livid by this point. "You're going to seriously hurt each other if you continue." Shaela held her posterior as she glared death at Tom, Tom looking calmly back and ignoring his jaw pointedly. "For bonded, as we are now, what we think the others will feel." Ayeka continued, trying to explain their situation.

"I got the point." Shaela said as she sat back, not looking at Tom anymore.

Ayeka settled herself and sat back against the rock wall behind her. "I can release you at anytime you wish, but I'm afraid Tom and myself shall be bonded for quite a lot longer than what we both want."

Shaela was about to ask why that was, but Tom cut her off with the answer. "A Juridian cut off from their power by The Armor, given their power back, and now bonded to the possessor will be considered forfeit unless she can prove to her people that she is totally under control and not subverted by the influences of The Armor. If she can't prove it, she will die with me."

Ayeka nodded softly, not liking that train of thought. "My people are very strict about contact with possessors." She sighed as she closed her eyes, the first rest she had been allowed in awhile. "It was rumored as a dark secret that one Juridian had actually married the possessor."

Tom shifted uncomfortably, but Shaela took no notice. "What happened to them?" Shaela asked to a reclining Ayeka, who was trying to find the most comfortable spot.

"The Armor destroyed both of them." Ayeka said as she sighed and gave up on comfort. Ayeka looked over at Tom quickly with a slight irritation. "Yes," Ayeka answered the unspoken remark, "at one point in time, I did think it was romantic."

"Dreams die hard." Tom laid down in a ball where he was, curling up on himself as he placed an arm under his head. "If you ladies can, I would suggest warding your minds from me." Tom said as an offhand comment, his eyes already closed to the light around him. "I've been told I have a sick imagination, and I'm sure you don't want to be a part of my dreams."

Shaela watched, as first Tom felt asleep, followed by Ayeka. She was tired as well though in not the same way as what they were. Her energies had been severely drained by use, plus the torture she had endured at the hands of the Shadowen leader, Galus. All she needed to do was close her eyes for just a short moment, and try to forget.

She slipped into a dream almost immediately, sinking through a warm, misty place of sounds and smells. There was fruit and water, wines and pools of scented liquids that had various colored flower petals floating on the surface. She felt more than saw a presence somewhere nearby, someone or something, though she could feel that they were not in the least bit hostile. She walked through an arched doorway of alabaster, the colors of cream and soft pink swirling in the stone as she walked into a room of silks and hangings.

She felt like she was walking in on something, something that she wanted and at the same time, feared. She moved forward hesitantly, moving softly across the fur carpets of animals she had never seen before sewn into one long piece of fur. The sound of a moan came from behind a shade that sent shivers up her body; not a moan of dread, but of pleasure that one could not described with words.

She reached out to the shade, brushing it with her fingers and gasped slightly as the shade disintegrated into fine pieces of gossamer threading finer than any hand could make. He was there, she knew he would be, a bed made of pillows and cushions that she thought would fit him. She didn't expect however for her to be with him.

Tom hovered scant inches over Ayeka's body, leaning down to kiss her skin, taste her flesh as she offered herself up to him. Ayeka was biting down on one of her knuckles, repressing the urge to call out once again, and blushing furiously as his lips found a place on her body that sent her trembling. It was pure sexual lust she was seeing, and Shaela hated Ayeka for being there with him. She wanted to pull him off her, to tear her heart out, anything to make her go away.

"Shaela." His voice was in her ear and the world warped around her. She no longer stood in the drapes, but knelt on the cushions as he came to her. His face no longer bore the look of sadness his eyes carried with him, and his carriage was of confidence, not of ashamed. He came to her slowly, and she hungered for him, devoured him with her eyes as she watched him come to her slowly with lethal grace, a primal force that was more powerful than nature itself.

Stopping before her, he knelt down next to her and brushed at the errant strands of hair that she suddenly found annoying. His fingers were light and gentle, his lips parting slightly as she watched him watching her. "I've wanted this for a very long time now." He whispered to her and she felt something loosen inside of herself for him.

"I had so many doubts, I didn't know if you liked me or not." Shaela spoke the words she had always wanted to say, yet they suddenly sounded so trivial and meaningless to her own ears.

"I have loved you since the first time I saw you, Shaela." Tom whispered for her ears alone and he moved in closely to her. "I never wanted to hurt you." His lips touched hers and she tasted him for the first time, slightly salty with the tears that were coming from her eyes. He kissed them away, one at a time, as she shivered with the touch of his hands.

She felt the things he wanted to do to her in his mind, she felt that connection more strongly than she had felt anything else in her life. Even before he had begun to touch her, she was softly cooing inaudibly her desires. He laid her back gently, his hands and lips doing things to her she had never experienced before, and then a sudden drifting pulled her up away from the feeling. She was somewhere else, and yet she was there with him as they lay together. Tom was standing nearby, looking down at them, as they lay in the pillows, and then looked up to her.

"You should get those desires under control, Priestess." This Tom was cold, yet she felt that there was sadness in him. "What this is can never be."

"What the hell is going on here?" Shaela asked in confusion even as she felt what was happening to her other self below them. "What do you mean, 'This can never be'? What is this?"

"Haven't you figured that out yet, Shaela?" Ayeka appeared out of the darkness, swirling together as if she were mist given form. "What you just experienced was a dream."

"You're telling me I'm dreaming?" Shaela scoffed. She had never had any kind of dreams like that, especially with him in them.

"It's my dream." Tom answered and waved at the images below them, making them disappear with a gesture. "I told you she would need to be shown how to protect herself." Tom looked at Ayeka, who nodded her head.

"Yes, she very nearly got caught in something she would regret later." Ayeka glided over to the fire priestess, her legs unmoving below her in this unreal world they were all in. Ayeka placed her hand on Shaela's shoulder.

Shaela awoke abruptly, Tom and Ayeka standing over top of her. "Are you awake now?" Ayeka asked as Tom walked over to the entrance of the room.

"What in the hell was that all about?" Shaela said as she brushed Ayeka's hand off of her shoulder.

"You slipped into my dream." Tom said as he stood in front of the doorway. He glanced over his shoulder with a cool look at the women. "Both of you did."

"Both?" Shaela looked at Ayeka who was blushing furiously.

"I…was able to extract myself after some concentration." Ayeka spoke hesitantly, obviously not wanting to tell the truth.

"Never again." Tom spoke each word with intended slowness, making his point bluntly. He turned and walked out into the hallway outside of the cave, and waited with patience.

"I shouldn't have been so lax, that was foolish of me." Ayeka admonished herself quietly, smoothing her clothes that had added dirt tracks while she had been asleep.

Shaela was seriously confused. "Was that…"

"Real?" Ayeka finished for her, as she looked the other woman in the eye. "You should know that, since your antics last night. Our bodies feel everything we think, especially through the bond."

"What is the bond if it links us like that?" Shaela asked as she stretched then stood up slowly.

"I would have told you yesterday in confidence that the bond links our souls together." Ayeka looked over toward Tom then lowered her voice. "Now that we are linked to the possessor, I don't know."

"You were never taught what this is?" She tapped the side of her head as she looked at Ayeka.

"I was taught that the possessor doesn't have a soul." Ayeka was telling the truth by the obvious look on her face, the look that screams fanaticism.

"Maybe they were wrong?" Shaela said offhandedly and felt a swell of anger coming from Ayeka.

"Juridians do not lie." Ayeka spoke crisply as she turned away from Shaela and walked out. Shaela followed after, though obviously not wanting to be near Ayeka.

"Where to now?" Shaela asked as they peered back downward, or toward the dead end above them.

"Back, of course." Ayeka sounded like she expected to be in charge, but Tom walked toward the dead end.

"We're leaving." Tom said as he felt the ground before him with his hands.

"I'm not sure you realize this, but there's a good distance between us and the surface. Approximately 350 feet of dirt, if you didn't know." Ayeka was looking at him as if he was mad.

"Thanks for the advice," Tom stepped back from the wall, his clothing starting to ripple on a gust that touched only him, "Now I suggest to you and Shaela to get behind something."

The Armor materialized on his chest and back, a black cape swirling around him like a dead shroud. He clenched his hands and The Armor lengthened down his arms, forming metal and spikes as it encroached on his body. His hands open splayed as the black moving matter covered them, hardening into brutally sharp talons that looked ready to pierce. His head began to be covered as well, the darkness forming into a helmet that looked vaguely like the demon he had been before.

He growled deep in his throat, making him sound like some animal, then ripped forward with his hands, gouging out rock and dirt with a single swipe. The rock flew away in chipped debris, the substance that covered him cutting through it with a bare hesitation. Tom's eyes narrowed and he began cutting a path upward toward the blue sky above.

* * *

"Kagato…" the ethereal voice that was his mistress, Tokimi, beckoned to him.

Willing himself from the planet, Kagato flew through existence, traveling only by thought and desire. With the power at his disposal, he could fly to the ends of the universe and watch as worlds were made. He had been warned that using his powers for other than what his savior had wanted would earn him her wrath. He would not provoke her again into such an act.

Kagato appeared in the place that could not exist, kneeling on something that wasn't there, but surely held him up. Tokimi was floating above the floor, but now she had taken the form of a young lad, no older than 8. "My master." Gender meant nothing to Tokimi; it was simply a long-standing habit from when he had been alive.

"Your report?" the voice held neither the squeak of youth, nor the regular sound of life in it, only the dull monotone of something that was beyond such things.

"By your command." Kagato bowed his head and began telling everything that had transpired. "Floreshtica lies in ruins, and the last of the humans runs like scattering leaves in the wind. The Juridians are no hindrance to us as they seek out The Armor, ignoring everything else that happens. They have even taken it upon themselves to hunt out the humans and wipe them away. Diva's Bugrom army reigns supreme, and the Shadowen tribes lay decimated, as was your instruction."

"The woman you brought me has yielded interesting results." The youth switched topics abruptly in the middle of Kagato's recitation. This was typical and something he had gotten used to. "I have learned much from her of this 'Tom'." Tokimi raised its hand and a blue skinned woman appeared in the air between Kagato and Tokimi. "I have learned much from her as well."

"What is your command, My Master?" Kagato bent his head over, awaiting his next task.

"The planet Krinas has served its usefulness." Tokimi left the illusion of the blue skinned warrior in the air. "Destroy it."

"By your command, Tokimi." Kagato made to rise, but hesitated as malice began to ripple across the room.

"I have a special gift in store for the new possessor." Tokimi actually sounded amused, which was never good. "He will survive Krinas, Kagato."

"It shall be as Tokimi sees." Kagato bent his head even lower, fearing now what it would take to save the boy from himself.

* * *

**Ok, so I killed Miz, big deal. ducks as more stuff is thrown at his head Hey, I didn't say even the priestesses were immortal, did I?**

**tugs at the flannel coat he's wearing**

**It would seem that Tokimi has Meris' body, though how she got hold of it is a good guess. Three Chapters left to go, with an Epilogue close behind that. The Shadowen decimated, the Bugrom ruling over the planet, and the Juridians now the only force that could possibly stop him. Will Tom live long enough to see tomorrow? Will he even want to? T.T.F.N.**


	19. Chapter Eighteen

**Well, it coming down to the final few chapters, folks. Maybe when I finish putting this mess up and I can get back to putting up some chapters on the other fic I was working on first. This chapter is going to have a lot of Tom, Shaela, and Ayeka, mostly cause we need to find out exactly what both Shaela and Ayeka have to do with Tom and how he is 'supposedly' dead.**

**Disclaimer: Never have I been so poor as to wish I owned any right to El Hazard or Tenchi series. Unfortunately, I don't (I miss my instant noodles in that oh, so warm styrofoam)

* * *

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Chapter 18

**Breaking Away**

Tom punched through the last of the rock, his arms feeling like jelly. He gripped with his clawed hands and pulled himself out of the hole, rolling clear so that the other could follow him out. Shaela came after him, coughing softly from the dirt and crude he had kicked up with his digging, Ayeka coming behind them both and commanded to the things in the ground to tear up the hole they had made. In seconds, nature had heeded her order and tore the ground around their roots up, making the entrance collapse in on itself.

"That's one way of putting yourself to good use." Ayeka clapped her hands before herself, then on her clothes, knocking the dirt from them. Tom gestured toward her with one of his fingers, and it wasn't his index.

"Where are we?" Shaela asked as she stood up and took note of their surroundings.

Tom stood as well, though he was breathing hard. The Armor receded back to his chest and faded away from him, hiding itself somewhere everytime it went away. "Food first, then we find a way back."

At the mention of food, Ayeka and Shaela's stomachs echoed each other. They had been days underground, or at least they thought it had been days since their departure from their friends. Food was something they had put to the side until they were safe and that was now. Just the mention of something to eat started their mouths to water in anticipation.

Tom stepped off to the forest, his mind already deciding what he was going to do. "Someone should make a fire, and the other should find something edible to eat plant wise. I'll go get the meat."

"Tom." Shaela called after him and he stopped, turning to look at her. "Don't do anything foolish." She felt foolish for saying her mind, yet nothing came back to her from him. He turned and he walked off into the woods around them.

"He needs to learn some manners." Ayeka spoke softly, but not so quiet that Shaela didn't hear her.

"Let's gather what we need, he's not one for waiting around for something to come to him." She was already finding the nearest pieces of wood and scrub for the small fire they were going to need.

Ayeka and Shaela began gathering together the small necessities they were going to need, the rocks for the fire pit and berries for them to eat with whatever Tom managed to bring back with him. They had everything gathered, all except water anyways, and sat waiting for him to come back. Ayeka was feeling for him out there, sensing with her connection for where he could be since he had gone missing out there. Shaela was sitting across from her, experimenting with her own side of the connection, wondering what else could be done with it.

Ayeka blushed slightly at a thought from Shaela. "That's indecent, and I wish you would stop doing that."

"I'd like to know what I'm dealing with here, so I'm finding out what I can and cannot do." Shaela had known what she was thinking of was a bit indecent, but she wanted to see just how fine of a control she had of her bond.

Ayeka glanced at her, and then looked back off into the woods where the feel of Tom was barely discernible. "I keep telling you, it's like an extension of yourself. If you think it in your mind, it is real for anyone else bonded to you."

"Is it possible to be pregnant through a bond?" Shaela asked, wondering what that would be like.

Ayeka looked askance at Shaela. "That's really not my expertise." She said a bit quicker than she should of. "Normally, it is the decision of the seeded to either be separated for the growth period, or to keep the bond."

"That's not what I meant." Shaela thought out what she actually meant, or at least, what she believed she had meant by it. She wasn't exactly sure of herself at the moment and she was even more annoyed by the way Tom was behaving. With him giving nothing back of his own thoughts, it was hard to say what he thought.

"Mother always said that Sasami and I were special children conceived through love." Ayeka thought momentarily about her mother's words and Shaela's persistence on the subject. "I had wondered at the time what she had meant about such a thing…"

"Do you think it was the dreams?" Shaela asked, and felt heat rush into her face. Ayeka's face colored at the exact moment that Shaela's did, and both giggled for a second.

"He really should control himself." Ayeka sniffed as she took an affronted look. "I mean really, thinking of us like that. We should have called him down for such thoughts." Ayeka smirked slightly, and then sighed. "I wonder if his hands really do feel like that..."

The feel of something soft and light floated to Shaela for but a brief moment as Ayeka thought of that dream, causing her flesh to prickle at the remembrance. "I don't remember that, only his kisses..."

Ayeka looked as if her hair was about to stand on end as Shaela brought to mind what she had felt. She brought her hands up out of her lap and wrapped them around her arms. "He is a dirty man for doing such things without permission." She didn't sound like she was totally upset that he had.

Surprise leapt in the bond that was connected to Tom as a roar rolled out from the woods to them. The flash of teeth and claw came to them as a horned head snapped down at him, lethal claws digging into his back.

"Gods, a Thalion!" Shaela spoke as she and Ayeka came to their feet and moved toward the woods where the pain was coming from.

It wasn't too far from where they had set camp up at, which was lucky for Tom. A giant cat had rolled off of him with black horns coming from its temples. Fangs the length of a man's thighbone jutted downward from the jaw line of the beast as it snarled at the women. Claw marks gouged into Tom's back had punched down into his lungs from behind, yet he pushed himself up off the ground while his body recovered.

"Bad kitty." Tom hissed as his eyes misted over with a red glaze. The Armor arose from his body and pulsed quietly with held potential.

As soon as The Armor had come from Tom's body, the hair on the thalion had stood on end as if it were scared. Suddenly, instead of being the hunter, it felt as if it had become the hunted. The thalion tried to back away slowly from Tom as he inhaled slowly and flexed his hands. Before it had a chance to run, Tom leapt at it at his fastest speed. The sound of breaking bones came out of the cat with a mingled roar of pain.

The Armor was already fading as the cat like creature tried to get back to its feet weakly. It watched Tom the entire time and he watched it as it struggled less and less. A feeling of sadness was washing over his bond, something that he had remember about a smaller animal, much like the thalion, only without the horns or the size. A white and gray cat that his mind called a calico was being carried in his arms as he cried. He had taken great pain to make it as comfortable as possible, even though it was evident that the cat had been dead for at least a day or two.

Ayeka's armor keened in her mind, in tune with the misery that Tom was feeling at that moment. With a painful growl, the thalion shuddered and went still on the ground.

"I'm sorry for this." Tom muttered in a half-spoken voice. "Forgive me, but we are hungry." Tom's head came up and he looked over his left shoulder at the women standing behind him. There was a crazed look to his eyes, a mixture of pain and loss mingled with satisfaction.

"A-are you OK?" Ayeka asked hesitantly as Tom walked over and grabbed the hind legs of the cat.

He pulled hard, the weight of the beast making him grunt softly as he wrenched with the weight of the beast. The body moved slowly, the fur being too thin to properly grip while he fought for every inch of ground he could. Shaela stepped forward to take hold of the other side of the cat, wanting to do something to help him. Tom stared hard at her with a cold look that left her feeling useless before wrenching on the body once again.

They returned back to the camp, Tom taking the body someplace away from them and within moments he had returned with slices of bloody meat spitted on pieces of wood. He didn't stay for too long, saying he was going to dispose of what was left so that predators wouldn't bother them. He didn't come back immediately and by the time the meat was cooked to a brown color did he finally make his appearance. It was obvious to them that he had bathed and thankfully he had gotten rid of the smell of the thalion.

It was a messy business to eat at the meat that had been cooked, having nothing to cut it with, but they did what any hungry person would do if they had no other choice. Tom had finished what he would eat, leaving a few pieces of bone and some overly small pieces of fat left that he threw into the fire pit. Shaela hadn't been nearly as hungry as what Tom obviously had been, yet she had devoured a good portion of meat before giving up on it and snacking on the vegetables they had gathered. Ayeka had foregone eating her piece of meat long ago, gnawing only on the edges of it for the nutrients. She had then set to on the vegetables and had dined happily.

"I don't think I could eat another bite." Shaela said as she lay down away from the fire and spread her arms above her, watching the sky.

"You were absolutely a pig while eating. I've never seen anyone pack so much away before." Ayeka looked huffy and scandalized as she peered at Shaela from the corner of her eyes.

"Look who's talking." Shaela said as she sat up and pointed at Ayeka's hands. "I finished long ago, and you're still stuffing your face."

"We should be eating as much as we can, for it may be awhile before we eat again." Ayeka looked all cool and collected as she put down what she was holding, and then proceeded to wrap what little vegetables were left in a small bit of wrapping from her side.

Tom's hand came up suddenly to his left side, gripping his chest. From his bond, annoyance shouted out from him as well as deep pain as Tom bent double over himself and breathed raggedly. The girls both made to move toward him, but Tom raised his hand up to them, forestalling them. He breathed slowly over and over as the feel of the pain washed away in his mind and his bond returned to being immutable.

"If what you say is true," Tom cleared his throat before he continued, sounding slightly winded as he spoke, "You're going to have to get used to that as well."

"You're hurt." Shaela came over to him and fought with him as he tried to protect his upper body from being exposed.

"I'll manage, now lay off." Tom was snappish, but Shaela wasn't letting him have his way as she persisted with fighting with him. Ayeka thought of them as being young kids playing together and Tom thought back at her that she would be the old lady watching them.

"I'll have you know that I am not that old." Tom had given up at this point and was allowing Shaela to remove his shirt. Ayeka watched with a slightly offended look, though she watched both of them with a clinical look.

The only noticeable disfiguration around his chest was the small scarring just below his left arm and the rounded pink flesh to the left of his nipple. He thought to her about what had happened to him that he had that scar, and the reason why he still hurt like he did.

"You should have taken the weapon from her if it was dangerous." Ayeka being for the moment the voice of reason admonished him for his decision.

"Had I known that it was a clip load, I would have kept it from her." Tom put his shirt back on and shifted away from Shaela. "Besides," He continued once he was settled in a new spot, "if I had been killed then, we wouldn't be where we are now."

"It would have been better for all of us had you died." Ayeka looked at him with pity in her heart.

"Yeah, well fate had other plans for me, now didn't she?" Tom laid down where he sat and rolled over on his side, intent on sleeping where he was.

"Talk about asinine; what the hell is your problem?" Shaela was fuming at Ayeka. "He just saved our lives and is putting himself in danger for us every time he uses that power. Can't you show a little appreciation?"

"I don't see why I need to answer that." Ayeka turned away from Shaela, which did nothing more than tweak Shaela off even worse.

"Don't you dare turn your face from me, you little marthla!" Shaela stood up and moved toward Ayeka. "You high pretentious marthla! What the hell gives you the right to condemn someone to what you call 'fate' by forcing your own kind on him?"

"We have to protect people like you from him!" Ayeka was on her feet, yelling back into Shaela's face. "We are the only people who have the power to fight back against him and stop him from destroying everything!"

"Kaffa!" Shaela declared and placed her hands on her hips, wanting instead to wrap them around the woman's throat. "He's had plenty of chances to destroy all of us, yet we're still alive! Explain that one!"

"He hasn't gone mad yet." Ayeka hissed at Shaela and Shaela scoffed in her face.

"I think you and your people are the mad ones." Shaela spat at the ground in front of Ayeka who was trembling slightly in repressed anger.

"Hey." Tom's voice turned them toward him. He was sitting up where he had lain at, looking at the both of them with an uncaring gaze. "Shut the fuck up, the both of you. People in the next county want their sleep as well." Both women tried to talk at the same time as one tried to explain while the other was snapping at him with a venomous tongue.

Tom got up and wiped at his pants, trying to brush free the few grass pieces that clung to his leggings. "I don't care what your reasoning is, and I don't wanna hear about it. Each of you has your reasons for your thinking and that's just ducky with me, but give it a fucking rest for a moment and think about this for a second."

Tom pointed at Ayeka as he continued. "That guy Kagato seems to have not only a serious beef with me, but with you as well, so I'd guess there's something screwed up with the chain of command with your Juridian friends."

Tom then pointed at Shaela. "Don't help me, don't think I need help, don't get attached, and don't think I even care for you." Shaela looked extremely hurt by his words. "You've been nothing but a trouble magnet ever since I met you."

Tom felt like he was being beat in such a fashion that he should have been black and blue all over his body. Shaela was crying silently, but she didn't turn away from him. She instead stared him down till he turned and left the camp. Ayeka sent out a small pitying thought, trying to comfort her, and had it slapped back at her in an offended manner. She just couldn't understand him, why did he have to be like that to her? What had she done wrong?

* * *

The sun was going down by the time Tom had come back. Shaela and Ayeka had gone off in their own directions to find separate places to sleep at. For Tom, finding them was only a matter of time. Shaela had always been a light sleeper and she woke violently when Tom had come near her, though what sound he had made was hard to say. Ayeka slept heavily, tired from the constant defensive posture she had been in ever since regaining her powers back. It was almost like she was determined to not lose them this time.

He didn't bother to wake her as he lifted her off the ground, and then wondered if the vegetables she had eaten were heavier than what he thought they had been for her to weigh so much. They walked most of the night away before she had awaken and thanks to her scream and protests to be let down from his arms, nearly had gotten them caught by a patrolling Bugrom squad. It was harder to lose the occasional Juridian patrol that flew overhead, they seemed to home in on Tom as if he were some sweet smelling flower and they the hungry bees.

One of the patrollers had gotten so close that Tom was quivering in restraint, as The Armor wanted to snap forth and obliterate this foe before him. Ayeka and Shaela could feel him struggling with everything he had to keep it under control, finally relaxing when the Juridian took back to the skies above and away from them.

"I still don't see why we didn't just kill all of those bugs back there." Shaela was still harping about not getting her way and Tom explained it to her once more.

"If we had destroyed them, the queen would know. The queen is linked to all her bugs and I'd bet that killing any of them would bring the entire colony down on us." Tom pushed a branch out of his way and trudged on again.

"Well, we could have at least handled that Juridian scumbag." Ayeka was shaking her head even before Shaela had finished her complaint.

"Tell ya what, Shaela." Tom said over his shoulder, not giving her the pleasure of a frontal attack. "Next time we get so close to a Juridian that I can spit on him, you can attempt to whip their ass, okay?"

"Like that will ever happen." Shaela thought to herself and cursed at Tom silently.

"Your wish is my command, Master." Tom spoke aloud as his body seemed to ripple in the air.

"Thomas, No!" Ayeka was bringing her own Armor to life around her as Tom began to be covered from head to toe in a dark plate mail of some archaic time.

"Tom, no…." he muttered aloud as he peered around them vacantly through the slits of a full mail helmet. The face mask looked to be alive and that of the beast he had been far below the ground. "The Possessor, YES!!!!!" Tom rose off the ground by will alone, flying into the air as if he had been thrown.

"Thomas!" Shaela yelled up after him as Ayeka formed her Armor completely, materializing the bladed staff she had used on him before.

"I told you thoughts were just like something physical." Ayeka threw at Shaela as she leapt upward, into the sky beyond.

She moved through the woods, climbing one at last when she couldn't find a proper hill to stand on. She clambered ungainly up the trunk as best as she could, hoping that he didn't do anything drastic because of her. She had broken clear of the canopy of trees to the sky above as something emanated outward from Tom. A black disc of menace emanated outward from him in a single line, spreading outward as a sheet of black filth that hung in the air. He spun slowly, looking to be on the tip of his toes as he revolved in one spot.

Ayeka was flying around him in a circular orbit, trying to talk him down from the sky. She could hear their talking in her head as if she were standing next to them, though Tom's connection was muted.

"Please, Tom." Ayeka was begging him as she circled. "Give up this madness. Come back down with me and let us continue our journey."

"It is madness, isn't it?" Tom asked quietly, staring out at nothing with his arms held not cross over him, but in front of him. His right hand scratched at his left shoulder while his left hand gripped his right hip.

"You're not insane, just hurt." Ayeka wasn't sure she was doing any good talking to him. "You've been through a lot of pain lately."

Tom let slip one brief cough of laughter. "Pain is sweet ambrosia that is pleasant to taste compared to what I've been through, what I'm still going through!" He was venting some of what he was feeling unconsciously. "You have no idea what it's like to be bonded to this thing on me, this plague of death and insanity!"

Ayeka tried a different tact. "We only want to help you…"

"Bullshit!" Tom wheeled around and held her in front of him as she spun around him. "Your way of helping me is to destroy me! This isn't about saving my life to you, oh no. This is about saving your own and everyone else's."

Shaela and Tom both could feel the semblance of a lie forming in Ayeka's mind before she tossed it away. "You're right." Ayeka said to him with as much honesty as she could. "It is my duty as a Juridian to slay you and bring peace to the universe."

"Then try, Juridian." Tom spread his arms wide to her, inviting her attack. "Try and finish me off where you have failed before."

There was hesitation in Ayeka, and a touch of sadness. She didn't waste the opportunity though as she stopped and plunged her weapon as deep into his chest as she could, pumping the force of her Armor into him. Shaela watched in abject horror as Tom twitched and writhed upon the lance of energy, Ayeka doing everything she could to try to overload him. Tom's connection to them pulsed once and dimmed greatly as his life seemed to be snuffed out by the overwhelming exposure of such raw power, but after a few moments it began to brighten again.

"Oh, Tom…" Shaela could feel what it was like, Tom's mental control dropping as his mind floated in and out of consciousness. There was no pain at this point; his body wasn't registering the hurt his soul was going through. There was fear in him, deep and abysmal as The Armor absorbed the force of Ayeka's attack and made it a part of itself.

"Stop it, Ayeka! Please, stop it!" Shaela thought as hard as she could toward the two, hoping that her mental call was strong enough to be heard over the forces being wielded.

Lances of white-hot energy flew from far away and struck Tom in the back hard, causing both Ayeka and Tom to fall shortly before Tom grabbed hold of the lance, stopping himself and Ayeka. He looked over his shoulder even as The Armor covered up the spots that had been blasted from it. Far off in the distance, the flickering of several flying lights could be seen converging toward them at a very fast pace.

"Juridians." Tom growled deep in his being, probably in his throat too if Shaela had been close enough to hear him. With a violent wrench, he pulled free from the lance and threw both it and Ayeka away from himself as he turned and set forth toward the lights.

Ayeka screamed in horror as a wave of darkness covered her bond from Tom, washing her consciousness with the backwash of taint from him. Shaela felt the same as a shadow seemed to cover her vision, but it was not revulsion she felt. She could hear every part of nature now, not just the essence of flame that beat in everything around her. She could feel the breath of the earth as it shifted and cracked open half way around the world. She could taste the wind after it had calmed down from a hurricane somewhere off to the east of her, hear the flow of water as it came from the icy caps of mountains she had never seen before. She had become as one with the planet; there wasn't anything that she couldn't do. All of nature trembled at her giddiness and wept at her fear.

There was screaming coming from far off, and she couldn't find the source of it. Someone was in pain and pleasure at the same time, a mix of destruction mixed with creation. She felt outward with her new powers, reaching out for the source of the person who screamed. She couldn't understand that the person who was screaming was in fact herself.

Far off to the south of them, Sasami gave a cry of fear and fell from the scaffold toward the ground. Joshaldan's reaction to the falling Sasami was to fall after her, meeting her in mid fall and calling to his power to slow their descent. The wind priestess and Ryoko flew down from the other spots where they had been working on the hull of the ship, lofting to and landing nearby to where Joshaldan and Sasami had landed.

"So dark…" Sasami was muttering incoherently, sweat beading on her forehead as she stared upward into the rafters of the bay, "So cold…"

"What's going on?" Washu was rushing up next to everyone as Jason swung downward from the top of the spacecraft.

"It's Ayeka." Joshaldan had his hand on Sasmi's forehead, looking deep into her lavender eyes. "Something has happened to Ayeka, something that involves The Armor."

"Blast, it's too soon." Washu thought to herself as she looked around. "Jason, get ready to go. Joshaldan, can you find where Ayeka is at?"

"Yes, now I know where she is at." Joshaldan was looking through the north wall, already feeling where a great concentration of Juridians where flying to.

"Take Afera and Ryoko with you, go get our friends." Jason was coming over with a few hastily grabbed weapons from a locker flung open near the entrance to the bay. "You leave now, Go get Tom and the others, Joshaldan will lead. Go, Now!"

"I can't leave Sasami like this." Joshaldan didn't want to go save The Armor; he wanted to stay here and protect Sasami as best as he could.

"I will take care of Sasami, go and do what needs to be done." Washu was already motioning for a few people to come over and help her with Sasami.

Joshaldan was loath to leave her here, but he knew there really was nothing he could do to help her. He had no healing ability like her sister or herself, and that sat sourly in his mind as he watched them take her away to a medical ward. Cursing himself for being useless, he turned and led them outside where he would guide them by his flight.

* * *

"Destroy the Armor!" came the battle cry of the Juridian warriors and each yelled it back in response as they girded themselves for this fight. They may have lost the leadership of Katsuhiko with his disappearance.

Masaki had assumed command of the Juridians when Katsuhiko had disappeared and was doing her best to keep an unconcerned look from her face when she thought about her husband, though she knew that now was not the time for thoughts of such concern. She pushed them to the side as the person coming at them changed, his form matching his black heart as he metamorphosed into that of some great leathery animal. Wings sprouted from his back and claws formed along both of his hands and feet, his facial features changing to that of a giant reptile mixed with human form.

The Juridians broke apart on cue that she flashed to them, spreading outward like an opening flytrap. Weapons of varying types were held before them in hands prepared for anything that this beast would do to them and yet the thing did not hesitate in the slightest. Instead, it sped up toward them, rushing closer with each flap of its wings as it strode to close the range between each other.

"Now!" Masaki commanded and the mouth of the formation swung toward each other, closing down on the swooping prey that had flown in too deep. There could be no escape for it once inside the circumference of Light Armor warriors. It would be whittled down from every angle until it fell from the sky in ragged pieces.

"Juridians! Strike!" The weapons were pointed from every angle and once again, the creature didn't seem to pay attention to them as from every weapon fired a white-hot beam of light that flew from them to The Armor, piercing it almost at the same time.

The thing that Tom had become stayed together for all of about two seconds before it unraveled before everyone's eyes. A few of the younger ones were already celebrating their victory while the elder ones looked about. Even Masaki couldn't believe that The Armor could have been defeated so easily, so quickly. The attack came from nowhere as one of the younger ones chest exploded outward as a black lance punched downward from above through the body.

All heads turned toward the dead body as it dissipated in broken light particles, showing The Armor leering down at the from above. It had been an illusion then, and a clearly well thought out illusion if all the Juridians had been fooled by it. They had exposed their backs to the beast and it had killed one of the younger, innocent ones with no delay. She would not be able to sleep tonight if she made it through today at all.

"MARIK!" one of the younger Juridians yelled out in grief the name of the boy that had died and before anyone else could die Masaki yelled out her own order.

"Pair up, Kill it!" They had been in pre planned pairs before the battle and it was these plans that should it come down to individual confrontation with this abomination that they should be coming at it in greater numbers.

Someone didn't heed her order and came at The Armor solo. Someone yelled out to them their name but it was too late. The Armor pivoted around the thrust that was too fast, too wild. They flew past; trying to turn around for another attack on it as it cast its black weapon toward them. They yelled in fear and then there was silence as their body was pierced and shattered.

"Pair up, Damn you all!" Masaki demanded. "Take it by groups, never go solo!"

The Armor reached into its body and pulled forth a sword this time, a weapon as black as its heart. The pairs broke apart in every direction around it, circling it for the best attack angle from which to strike at it. The first group composed of two elder fighters came at The Armor from behind in a rotating circle, placing one person before the other as they came closer, speeding their short rotation up till it was hard to guess at which way they would strike it from. The Armor couldn't see it coming from the angle they were approaching from and it seemed as if the fight would be over quickly.

The two Juridians broke apart and were going to pass him on either side, striking from both sides at once had The Armor not rolled backwards in a back flip and cut in mid flip. A scream of pain came from only one of the warriors as they fell a short way by gravity's pull; the other fell in half as their body turned to falling bits of light. The Armor attacked again while the wounded warrior was concerned with his severed arm, snapping its arm down at him. A black whip like tendril flew outward down toward the wounded warrior and The Armor roared in triumph.

Someone had the forethought to prepare a rope and pulled the wounded out of range of the tendril, which The Armor cried out in rage as its kill was taken from it. Three lost already in the first few minutes of the fight and they had yet to hurt it in any way.

"Everyone, Prepare to strike!" Masaki flew up toward the creature, willing her own weapon into existence. Ayeka's weapon was much like hers, for it was from Masaki that she had learned to fight. The Bladed staff was her prime choice of a weapon, though her daughter preferred the reach. This Staff was one foot longer than the blade, 4 foot long all the way up to the blade and the blade an additional 3 feet. Ungainly as it looked, 'Death Flower' was the nickname it had earned her among her peers.

She flew level with The Armor, prepared to defend herself if it chose that moment to attack her while she approached. It watched her with red glistening eyes and a hateful leer on its face, the sword covered with the blood of the recent attack. She hesitated for a moment, holding the weapon before herself in a firm grip, the blade in front of her face as she watched it and in turn, The Armor watched her with its blade held downward in front of its legs.

One of the younger warriors broke free and one of the Elders rushed toward them, trying to stop them in their haste to strike at The Armor. Masaki raised her hand out in front of herself, knowing it was a provoking move. The youngling came up short to the point of a sword in front of their left eye as the creature had brought its sword up and was prepared to run the person through its head. Fear sweat popped up on their face as the elder warrior grabbed hold of them in a tackling movement, pulling them out of the creature's immediate range.

Masaki was just beginning to realize just how much trouble she was in. The creature couldn't have seen exactly where or how the person was attacking it, it hadn't turned to face the new threat and as sure as the sun will shine tomorrow, it had brought its weapon up and around to strike at the attacker with unerring accuracy. Even now, the creature brought its weapon back down in front of itself as if it had not been disturbed by the attack that had nearly killed it.

There was only going to be one way to kill the creature. Masaki brought her weapon down and forward in a cutting motion as the thing spun away, bring its weapon up and around in a chopping backhand motion. Masaki rolled through with her attack and chose to bring her weapon up from below, making The Armor give ground or be cleaved in two from below. It didn't move far, just enough to be out of the reach of the very tip, then came back in, a short piercing motion aimed for the center of her body.

Spinning the staff part in front of herself, she parried the weapon outward and had it come back at her as she changed the rotation midway through, cutting in a half arc toward the center of The Armor's body. This time The Armor didn't retreat as it stepped deep into the arc, turning sideways into the weapon. It took hold of the staff at the point where the blade met staff and executed a leverage maneuver as it used its own body to flip her free and away from it. She righted herself and fell back toward the creature; her back turned to it as she gauged the distance over her shoulder.

She struck once and rebounded with the force of the block, fell back in and was rebounded a second time. It was striking strictly defensively at her and she couldn't understand why it was only doing that. She needed to do something drastic; something that would end this fight before it wore her down.

"Juridians!" Masaki called in her native tongue. "Aana' Harluth mizraq pih frituon!"

The Armor growled at her, never taking its eyes from her, but the other Juridians understood what she intended to do. Some were already giving the benediction as their weapons disappeared and their hands began to glow with a soft iridescence. She was fairly sure she was not going to win this fight by martial skills, something about it was just too fast even for her in this enhanced form. They needed to end this and there was no sacrifice great enough that any person would hesitate to destroy something so evil.

They came at each other, Light and Darkness colliding in a violent show of lethal skill. Masaki threw everything she had at the creature and in turn she received back all the hatred and anger The Armor could wield back at her. She provoked a strong swing to counter her own attack and made her weapon disappear as they were to collide together in mid swing. The Armor unprepared for the maneuver swung through with nothing to strike and left exposed its back to her.

Masaki moved in and gripped The Armor as hard as she could from behind, wrapping her arms down between the wings on its back and locking off its arms with a grappling maneuver. "Miroosh! Miroosh, loth Juridians!" She yelled as The Armor fought to free her from itself.

The Juridians hands didn't glow anymore, they shined. They pointed at her and The Armor and from their hands, solid beams of Light rushed toward them. The Armor stopped and watched, transfixed by the display as it rushed to meet him. Masaki had time enough to speak the first lines of the benediction before the beams rushed over them. There was pain and a bright flash as all sound was obliterated by something the ear cannot contain along the normal spectrum, then mercifully the darkness swept over her as she died.

She dreamed that she stood outside The Great Forest, the resting place of all fallen warriors who had done what was needed of them to maintain balance in creation. Of course it couldn't have been a dream though, she had died, hadn't she? She stood outside on a dry and barren plane, an actual line of life on one side and a barren and lifeless wasteland where she stood that stretched onward until forever. The two children who had died were here, being shown deeper into the woods by their ancestors.

Sighing, regretting leaving her daughters behind, Masaki stepped toward the forest before her. As she neared the grass before her, she felt as if she was being forced away from the woods. She pushed forward harder, and could only come to within feet of the grass, denied from entering. She was outraged, had she not helped to destroy The Armor? Was she not entitled to enter into the lands of the sacred?

Her mother and father appeared from the trees, looking with only love at their daughter. Masaki wanted to voice herself, to give credence for her right to join them.

"My dear, precious daughter." The female form said to her without having to speak. "Only those who have died may enter here."

"Your time has not yet come." Her father also was smiling at her. He looked better now that he had died, instead of ravaged by the life stealing disease that had wasted away his body. "Go back to your children, Masaki. Ayeka will need your help even more now that she has chosen her Rah' Koul."

Masaki's eyes snapped open and she stared upward into the faces of those she knew.

"Talan, she's coming to." The youngling Terias stood over her, shading her from where she laid.

"What happened?" Masaki made to move, and was pressed back down toward the ground by her old friend, Talan.

"Rest, Masaki." Talan looked at her with a few wisps of white above his eyes. His hair had always been the color of oak, but the tuffs over his eyes had prematurely turned white, giving him the look of an elder before his time. His tan skin looked pale, most likely the backlash of summoning so much power all at once. "You nearly died today."

"I should be dead." She refused to lie down, needing to see what was happening. Sitting up with aid, she looked to where the gathered Juridians stood. Inside a circle of bodies, the crumpled form of a young man laid, his body withered and broken as he lay on the ground.

"'It' saved you." Talan was looking over at the body as well. A look of amazement mixed with disgust was painted on his face.

"Mother!" Ayeka appeared as if grown on the spot, kneeling down and wrapping her arms around Masaki's neck. "Oh, Mother, I'm glad you're all right."

"Ayeka?" Masaki was a bit confused on how her daughter had gotten here.

"At least let me see if he's all right!" A boisterous red headed woman was trying to get past the people surrounding the body. "I'm telling you, I can hear his thoughts, now let me through!"

"A non-juridian is unable to hear the thoughts of another, especially that of The Armor Wielder." It was the strict rules of Juridians. No one was to have contact with The Wielder, but usually there wasn't even a body to touch afterwards.

"Mother, let her go to him. She's not going to let up till she's satisfied and she's giving me a headache." Ayeka placed a hand to her temple then looked over at the red headed girl. "Shaela, for the last time, stop yelling. He's unconscious so he won't be able to hear you."

Masaki looked askance at her daughter. For all indications, the red headed girl hadn't even raised her voice loud enough to be considered a yell, though she had bordered on a shout a few times. Why would her daughter be having a headache from such a minor thing, unless….

"You bound yourself to him." Masaki accused Ayeka, bringing the look of meekness to her face.

"I did." Ayeka looked as if she wanted to crawl somewhere and hide. "It was the only way to keep tabs on him."

"What in the name of The Light possessed you to bind your mind to his?" Masaki shouted at her daughter and swooned as the world spun around her for a moment.

"I didn't know he was The Possessor till we had come to this planet." Ayeka blushed slightly, but took a defiant tone, as she looked slightly testy. "By the time I knew what he was, it was too late."

"Unbind yourself from him." Masaki made it an order; she wasn't going to have her daughter sully the name of her house.

Ayeka looked taken aback. "Mother, we can learn so much from him."

Masaki couldn't believe her ears. Her daughter was trying to save the life of this forsaken soul. "Ayeka, it's commendable that you want to save him, but he is Lost. It is better he dies here and now."

"I don't think he can die, Masaki." Talan stood up and looked over to the fallen form.

"Everything can die, Talan." Masaki was looking up at him from where she sat, her head still spinning slightly.

"You should be dead." Talan looked down at her, and then motioned for the circle to open up.

Shaela rushed in between two of the younglings as she went to Tom. She knelt by him and pressed her fingers to his throat, then pulled back one of his eyelids. It was uncertain what she was doing, maybe some old way of checking the dead. Masaki wasn't sure and couldn't care less unless he truly was alive.

Shaela jumped back and landed on her rear as Tom groaned slightly, a soft mist of light coming out from the corner of his mouth as he shivered slightly. "He's o.k., just recovering." Shaela announced as she helped Tom sit up, rubbing his back.

"Impossible." Masaki muttered as Tom coughed once, then again. More of the misty light came out of his mouth as he blinked weakly and looked around.

"I feel like shit." Tom coughed again and spat at the ground. "That's it, no more partying for me."

Masaki motioned and Armors came into existence with no hesitation.

"Mother, No!" Ayeka had gripped Masaki's sleeve, but Masaki pulled her arm free from her.

"You are no daughter of mine." Masaki said softly as she focused her rage fully on Tom. She stood weakly, calling to her own Armor.

Tom's head snapped upward to the sky. "Fitting that he should look once more at it. It would be the last time he'd ever get to see it again." Masaki raised her hand, preparing to signal the attack.

"Get Down!" Tom yelled and rolled over top of Shaela, covering her from something.

Green light flashed down from the heavens, spraying dirt and Juridians into the air. Screams of fear and of pain came from everyone as the earth erupted with the force of the green light as it slammed into the ground. Someone else was attacking them, a second person that didn't care who they killed, only that everyone died. Masaki believed it to be The Armor calling down death from the heavens, but the voice was far too human.

"You escaped death a second time, earthling. You will not escape it a third time." More beams of green light rained down on them all, more and more focusing on the spot where the boy had been.

Ayeka had changed into her Armor and had risen up into the air, her weapon already in her hands as she sped toward the attacker. A second later, a black form sprung upward into the sky after her, black wings beating fiercely as they rose to the attack. The red headed girl seemed to be all right, most likely protected by The Armor. Ayeka came within feet of the person before they turned their power against her. The beast reached up toward her and around Ayeka formed a dark barrier; a defensive shield made of black energy.

She slashed at her foe through the shield; it parted before her and resealed before they had time to retaliate. The slash had missed, but only by scant inches as they pulled away and materialized their own weapon. Green energy sword met crystallized light staff over and over again before The Possessor could come close, then he joined the fight as a black sword was pulled from his body. Being outnumbered 2 to 1; the attacker mocked Tom as they fended off the attacks.

"I see you have learned from your past mistakes." They parried away Ayeka's slash as Tom came closer, using his claws as weapons. "Maybe you will not lose this woman, yes?"

Tom roared angrily, more beast like than man as his vision condensed down to a single point. This was the one who had taken her life, this person who had no pity or remorse. This was the one who would kill for the pleasure of it. He would die and die and die again even if Tom had to resurrect him for millennia to come till he was satisfied. Tom's body was being slashed over and over again, but he didn't care. Only death would prevent him from killing this one person.

"You killed Juridians to try to ambush him, Kagato. People who would have helped you destroy him. What did you think you would accomplish?" Ayeka was questioning Kagato at the same time as she was fighting him, knowing that the Juridians couldn't hear them she needed to find an opening on him so that she could end this fight before Tom became any angrier.

"I care not for Juridians or anyone else, girl." Kagato was laughing as he fought, or was it more like playing with over indulgent children? "Tokimi has demanded that I take possession of The Armor at any cost. Killing Juridians is just an added bonus. People I won't have to deal with later."

Ayeka side stepped a thrust and parried away a second attack as Tom came in from the other angle, taking away the attack for the moment from Kagato. Ayeka had so many questions for him, but it was at that moment that Masaki had rallied together the surviving Juridians.

"Halt, In the Name of the Light!" Thirteen glows of light were rising from the cloud of kicked up dirt, heading for them high above the ground.

"Ah, and here comes the cavalry, never around until the fight is over." Kagato's sword disappeared as he swept out of striking distance from Tom and Ayeka. "Until next time, children."

"KAGATO!" Tom roared in a beastial challenge, moving too fast for even the ethereal Kagato to avoid. Tom grabbed his leg in a vise like grip and The Armor pulsed darkly as light fled inward to him.

"Fool!" Kagato was firing point blank into Tom's face, trying to get him to release. "You'll destroy us both!"

"**DIE!**" The Armor pulsed a second time, and the world screamed.

* * *

**Can anyone say pissed off? Kagato hand this coming from a long time off, but exactly what did Tom do? notes the intended cliffhanger**

**The Juridians were unable to kill Tom off with the numbers they had left, and even Masaki is unsure of what happened to her husband, but I bet she can guess. Hopefully now that Tom is dealing with the Juridians face to face, maybe they'll let him off with some kind of probation? ducks as someone from the readers tosses a heavy object toward his head Ok, Ok, so he doesn't get probation. But I guarantee you that by the end of the story, you're going to wonder what the hell is truly going on here. **

**T.T.F.N.**


	20. Chapter Nineteen

**Well folks, We're down to the last two chapters, not including the epilogue. The fighting is near its end in this chapter, seeing as how Tom was in the middle of a fight with Kagato and the Juridians at the same time last chapter. This will be a tying up of loose ends chapter, so I'll try to get most of your questions explained here.**

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Either El Hazard or Tenchi series creations, and most likely never will. The Armor of Darkness is Mine Forever!!!

* * *

**

Chapter 19

**Prisons made of Glass**

The sound of an explosion was worldwide. Every creature, great and small was in tune with the world and with its life. In an instant, every creature felt something was wrong with the world. Every creature knew that the world was dying.

Windows shattered in the buildings where the reconstruction effort was going. The ships were nearly complete, even space worthy when the sound hit them as of God screaming in his death throes. People rushed outside to see what the commotion was about, while Washu brought up her computer.

"Oh, no, Tom. Not that…" Her computer was bringing up catastrophic changes happening to the planet. In a remote area many kaltel north of them, the atmosphere had been blown away from the planet in an explosion that would be sufficient to start an extinction level event on a planet 10x the mass of Krinas.

Schtarubal came out of the med lab, looking disheveled as he wiped at a stain that had materialized on his robes from somewhere inside the med chamber. "Lady Washu, has something happened?"

"Get everyone inside the ships now and have them prepare for launch immediately." The sounds of the wind whipping up outside were getting louder and louder as the oxygen bled off from the planet. "We have no choice now, we must leave!"

"Lady Washu…" Schtarubal was about to ask again, but the look Washu gave him cut him off.

"Your planet is dying around us, Schtarubal." She said clinically, coldly. "If we do not leave, we will die with it."

Schtarubal turned pale as he sputtered. Nodding, he rushed of as best as his short stature could allow. Washu walked inside to where Sasami lay at, monitoring her health as she could and began the process of linking the computers on all three ships to her terminal.

* * *

At one time, he would have thought this was a good way to travel. When Afera suddenly passed out and began falling, he decided he would have rather walked to where he was going. Falling at ten thousand feet wouldn't do a thing to him when he impacted, but Afera would be splattered all over the ground, even if Jason protected her from the initial impact. Splattering all over him would be the same effect, given that his body was as resilient as a beam of metal.

Then the sky cracked open, and the stars could be seen. The breath rushed out of his lungs as he fell, wondering if the world had suddenly decided to cast him away from it. Had Joshaldan not been with them, they might have suffocated without ever finding out those answers. Joshaldan extended a light field around both of them and air rushed in around him as his fall was abruptly ended.

"Thanks." Jason coughed once as he sucked in mouthful after mouthful of sweet tasting air.

Joshaldan wasn't even looking at them. He was looking forward to where they had been heading, intent on something beyond the sight of Jason's eyes. "We're too late." He muttered as the ground began to rip apart below them and fly upward into space.

"What happened?" Jason asked as he watched magma erupt onto the surface, spurting up in fountains of bright crimson.

"The Armor happened." Joshaldan took his eyes away from the scene and started heading back toward the shipyard, hoping they would survive today.

* * *

Shaela had never seen anything like what she was witnessing. The sky peeled back upward into the black abyss beyond her world, and clouds ceased to be. Wind was rushing by them as sound bled away outside the bubble of light that the person she stood with had created. The earth cracked and splintered, then rushed upward into the sky as if the laws of nature no longer mattered. All this would have amazed her, if she were not a priestess of the elements.

Everywhere she looked around her, the flame of life was snuffed out. There were bright coronas around every living thing, now it was like being in a sea of darkness. The ground erupted with a sea of fire, the very blood of the planet, and even that showed traces of life bleeding out from it as well as the flames cooled outside of the light, and finally was snuffed out.

In what had been the sky so short a time ago, a black orb, blacker than even the space seen past it pulsed with energy. Lightning the color of onyx danced along the surface and the feel of malevolence spread outward as raw power seethed inside it. It held a life that she could see as well, but it was as if flame was cold and ice was hot. Everything that was normal to her was opposed in that black orb and she cringed away from it in revulsion.

"We failed." The young man said at her side with sadness in his voice and eyes. He looked upward and they rose from off of the ground that was exploding around them.

There was nothing to say or do as the young man lofted them upward into the black abyss of space, traveling unknown speeds as they left the black orb behind. Shaela saw a ship of wood seemingly made from a tree come into view at a great distance. They were coming closer to it and Shaela could see that it was large, far larger than anything could be in her mind. The ship, if ship it truly was, was as large as the city of Floreshtica had been. A monolith of wood among the stars and through an amber opening they went, standing upon the pathway beyond.

The light from the person cut off abruptly and Shaela feared that she was going to die, only to realize that she was able to breathe here as normally as she could have breathe on the surface. Turning, she looked back outward through the amber. The planet was splintering in jagged lines from the scene outside, tearing away at itself from the sudden irregularity that had been caused by Tom.

"Hard to believe that one person can do that much destruction." The person said next to her as they stared outward as well. Lights could be seen coming toward them now, though faintly as they flickered weakly over the great distance. The person tilted their head as if hearing a far off sound, then took Shaela by the arm and pulled her along.

"Where the hell are you taking me?" Shaela demanded as she was ushered along down the hallway and through a passageway into a larger place with liquid floating in what looked like cylindrical tubes.

"They are bringing him here." The man was no longer being nice; he was back to being the hard person he had been before the planet had been killed.

No, she shouldn't think like that. She knew it was Tom who had done it, but it had been for the good. That person was nothing but evil and there was nothing else he could have done, wasn't there?

It was a few minutes before they processioned into the room, Tom was at weapon point, but he hardly even looked like he was alive or for that fact paying any attention. Ayeka stood next to him, which raised her ire a bit as she noticed her holding his hand, but she wasn't in any position to be doing anything about that.

Masaki, the de facto leader of the Juridians, turned and faced Tom. As one, the Juridians made a circle around him and stepped clear of him, as if he was unclean. "Remove yourself, Ayeka." Masaki was keeping a calm face, but she was anything but happy.

Ayeka made to stand closer, but Tom forcibly remove his hand from hers and turned her from him. Turning back to look at him with an angry look, she said, "You will not treat me so!"

"You will obey your peers." Tom sounded like he didn't care about anything anymore, his eyes were crying but his voice was soft. "You were not meant for today."

She stubbornly refused to move from him. Tom turned his back on her and would not turn back. A Juridian stepped forward to place their hand on her shoulder, which she abruptly brushed off and walked outside of the circle. She came to stand over by Shaela, and her heart was breaking. Ayeka knew what was coming.

"You, Possessor of Darkness, are charged with the most heinous act that can be brought forth in a court of law in the known universe." Masaki was intoning as if she was a Judge at court. "That charge is of the willful destruction of life and to be added to that the genocide of an entire planet." Tom turned back to look at her, his eyes red from his tears. "How do you plead your case?" Masaki went silent, waiting for his decision.

"There can be no pleading with the evidence presented in any court of law anywhere." Tom spoke levelly, without a trace of sadness in his voice. "It should and shall be the judgment of this court to find me, Tom Steele of Earth, an abomination that should be erased for all time from history." Ayeka made to step forward and was restrained by the arm from the man who brought Shaela there. "It should also be this court's decision that the person in question should be executed immediately for all crimes against him."

"Tom, stop it!" Ayeka blurted out.

Even Shaela couldn't keep silent. "You can't be held accountable for this."

"Silence!" Masaki turned and glared righteous fury on both of them.

"It has been noted, however," Tom continued without stopping, eyeing Masaki as he spoke, "that by the evidence presented before these upstanding people, "Tom hesitated, as if tasting the word himself, "that The Possessor cannot be destroyed by any means at the disposal of this tribunal."

"That is for us to decide." Talan stepped forward, though he seemed a bit unnerved that anyone, even The Possessor, would speak about himself as if he couldn't care less.

When Tom didn't continue, Masaki stepped forward one measured pace. "What is your name, Lost One?"

"I am Death." Tom muttered in a barely audible voice.

"I've had enough of this." Shaela was reaching for her glove, cinching on the straps as fast as she could while reaching through it.

"Shaela, not here…" Ayeka turned to the fire priestess, already trying to stop her from doing something drastic.

"This is not right, and you know it, Ayeka." Shaela finished strapping her gauntlet onto her hand and called to the elements, feeling the force of fire boil inside of her body.

Tom raised his hand toward her, and the flames died abruptly. Shaela was slightly stunned, and she tried to call to the flames once more. Tom kept his hand held up in front of him, pointing at the fire priestess.

"Spirits around me, you can't do this!" Shaela pulled harder on her element, demanding it to come to her.

"There is no greater sign that you are lost then when you cannot remember how to be human." Tom sounded unemotional; his eyes had dried up by this point, though tracks of tear marks were left on his face.

"I'm sorry, Tom." Ayeka looked helpless caught by her duty and by what she knew was right.

"Feel pity for those that survived, feel sadness for those who died, do not feel for those who cannot be forgiven."

"It is the judgment of us, the people of Jurai and possessors of the Light, hereby condemn you, wielder of The Armor of Darkness, to be henceforth lost for all time from salvation." Tom returned his gaze to Masaki, looking at her with dead eyes. "It is by our judgement that you shall be placed into a sleep that can never be broken, and from which you shall never arise from in your time."

Several of the Juridians looked at each other with skepticism and even a little fear. It was unheard of that The Armor's possessor could never be destroyed, but what would be the purpose of placing the possessor into eternal slumber?

"It is also by the decree of us that you will be taken to the most holy of lands and sealed away within a crypt of stone and dirt, bathed in light at all times so that your darkness can never sweep outward to possess another again." This comment brought mutters of dissent around the circle of survivors, and only Talan kept silent as he watched Tom. "You are forever more Lost." Masaki turned from him and went to one of the walls, the rest of the surviving Juridians all donned their Armors, even that of Ayeka as four Juridians took positions around him as a sort of guard.

Tom stepped forward then crumpled to the floor as he cried out in pain. Arcs of black lightning were coursing over his body as The Armor began to fade in and out on him. All of the survivors stepped back from him as The Armor came into existence, then flickered back out as Tom grabbed hold of his head.

"No," Tom was talking to himself, pressing on his head to keep his thoughts contained within, "You will not become free of me." Tendrils of The Armor began flailing around as The Armor took a physical form for moments, then disappeared with The Armor as it faded back away again.

"Masaki, the seal! Quickly!" Talan stepped in and tried to place a barrier of light around Tom to contain The Armor, only to have the light battered back and broken before him.

Ayeka broke past her protector, who was more intent on The Armor than on either her or Shaela. She came within inches of one of the dark tendrils as it faded back out with The Armor.

"Ayeka!" Shaela called to her from where the Juridian had remembered about her. "Don't do it! He can't control it any longer!"

Tom had his hands over his face, his teeth clenched as he fought within himself for mastery. With nothing left to lose, The Armor was making one final gambit with the full extent of its will to try and wash away Tom's mind and take possession. Ayeka could feel him fighting inside himself to keep it away from him, but he could not fight against something ageless and omnipotent, not without help.

"Tom." Ayeka stepped close to him as The Armor flickered into existence and was gone.

He peered up at her through his splayed fingers. One eye was changing colors from blue to green to hazel rapidly. The other eye was already awash in red, a sense of rage and anger coming from it, but not from him. "Ayeka." Tom voice was a mix of both his and that of the ageless tone of The Armor. He trembled slightly as she knelt in front of him. "You must get away from me." Tom's voice wavered as he struggled, sometimes the ageless voice taking full dominion in his speech, sometimes his own.

"I will not leave you to fight your battles alone." His bond was weakening; the darkness was washing over him faster and faster with every second.

"I cannot keep it contained." Tom shook, vibrated with tension. Every muscle and sinew in him had locked up; trying to keep whatever it was physically from coming out.

"You don't have to. We will face it together." She placed a hand to his cheek, smiling wistfully at him.

"You don't know what it's like." Red trails of blood were coming from his eyes as his body began hemorrhaging.

"I may not know what it's like, and to be truthful, I'm scared out of my mind right now." She was more than just scared; she was going to go insane if something happened to him in front of her face. There were no descriptions for fear on this level. "I'm not going to leave you to fight this alone though."

"I am already dead, Ayeka." Tom was pleading with her now; he didn't want to see her die. "Don't be a fool. Run away."

"I will not repeat myself." Ayeka put a little bit of heat in her voice then stroked his face softly. "You never asked for any of this, and I have done nothing that could help you. I will help you now by staying with you when you obviously need the help."

"How can you help a person who is already dead?" Tom was bleeding from his ear now, and a trickle of blood was coming from his mouth. His body had reached its limits as he began convulsing in front of her.

"I can show them how to live again, and tell them that they are very much alive." Ayeka took his hand in hers and issued a calming light into him. "You who tries to save everyone, putting yourself in harms way more times than not, let someone else save you this time."

Tom looked at her hand in his, and then looked to her as he placed her hand to his chest. "Forgive me." Tom gasped as he pushed his hand and hers into his chest.

A ripple of black power opened where their hands penetrated. Tom gasped in pain and Ayeka in shock as Tom guided her hand to something just beyond his ribs. He wrapped his hand on one side and hers on the other, and they pulled together. From out of the black rift, they pulled free the weapon that Tom had used previously; a black weapon made of darkness. A blade that reflected nothing and a handle that looked to be made of charred bone.

"When The Armor appears on me, you must pierce it with this weapon. Make sure to let go before it takes hold of you." Tom looked at her with sad eyes, pushing her away from him.

He rolled away from her at the exact moment and a scream of pain came from him, as his back ripped apart. Flesh scattered in stripped ribbons as Black fleshy wings spread off of him. His body changed as well, Bursting free of his human guise, his body creaking and popping as his transfiguration took place. His head distended, moving like wet wax as it reformed with a sick crunching sound.

Tom was gone from her mind, his bond lost to her as if he had truly died. In the place of his demise, rising up on two gargantuan legs was The Armor.

"Masaki!" Talan was still yelling for her and she called back to him.

"It's nearly done! Hold him at bay!" She was gathering the lifeblood of the ship, the sap that ran through the ancient trees of Jurai. Nearly having enough to encase the entire back half of the ship, she was directing it to pool together on the ceiling so that it would wash over the form as directed.

Lances of Light shot into the beast's form, issuing a damning scream from the creature. It retaliated by sending out its own versions of beams, tendrils of blackness impaling those who were not fast enough to avoid the attacks. The creature only had eyes for one person before it, that of the black sword wielder, Ayeka.

Shaela stepped before her and launched a blazing fireball in the creature's face, leaving the stink of charred flesh. The creature reared back caught off guard by such a base form of attack and Shaela let him have it. Flame darts fired from her fingertips, a lance of flame poured outward from the palm of her hand, fireballs the size of fireflies popped and sizzled against every place they could reach. A tendril came at her to stop her assault, only to be burnt back by a wall of fire that left the ship untouched.

Ayeka had ample time to strike, but she hesitated. She couldn't bring herself to strike at him, he had done nothing to deserve this except become the pawn of something greater. Why was it that he had to suffer for something he had done nothing wrong for?

"Stand Clear of It!" Masaki had amassed as much of the life essence of the ship as she dared without killing it around them. Shaela stayed near the creature, preventing any chance for it to escape as Masaki directed.

The golden fluid poured downward from the ceiling as gelatinous ooze, moving slowly and with deliberate motion as the first parts, latched hold of the creature's wings. It tried to wrench itself free by pulling hard on the liquid with its arms and body, only to serve in trapping it even more. Shaela moved back quickly as the syrupy fluid covered the creature more and more, trapping it inside where it could do no damage. The thing flailed away at the unknown substance, clawing to bring itself free as the mixture formed a giant pillar reaching from the ceiling to the floor.

Masaki clenched her hand before her and the fluid began to solidify, becoming harder and harder for the creature to move in. Ayeka walked forward, watching the creature struggle inside the amber as it hardened down even further till no movement could be possible. She placed her hand on the outside of the column and the creatures eyes locked on her once more.

Ripples of dark power began to emanate off the creature as it amassed for an attack, building up its strength to cast outward to kill. Ayeka could feel it under her hand, a total disregard for everything, a want or a need to do nothing but destroy. Her hand clenched on the handle of the weapon and with a determination, she plunged the weapon into the column. The creature seemed to reach out for the weapon as Ayeka slid the blade past its hand and into the creature's chest.

She released the handle of the sword and stepped back, as Tom had instructed her. As her hand came loose of the grip, the metal of the hilt came alive, trying to capture her hand to it. It hissed like a living creature and reached out for her only to give up after a foot. Tom bond came back to her as the creature suddenly locked in place.

"I am a person who is lost, not even sure I am a person." Tom's thoughts were coming to her and Shaela by the look on her face. "I have committed such acts as to be forsaken from redemption. I cannot be allowed to continue as I have, with no control over what I have become. It was the only way, wasn't it?"

The bond between them was silent as if he had fallen asleep, lost in an endless dream that she could only hope was pleasant for him. Shaela wept silently as she stared into the beast's face, and Ayeka slumped where she stood, unsure of whether it was the right thing or not.

* * *

"Ryoko! Status!" Washu was calling over the comm. channel to the command deck of one of the other ships. The noise outside was getting softer and softer as the air bled off the planet with a frightening pace.

"All accounted for and locked in, we're ready to launch on your command." Ryoko's voice sounded professional, but in truth, her thoughts were worried, and not just for their own safety. Afera, Jason, and Joshaldan had been out there when the explosion happened that ripped away the atmosphere of the planet. If they were all dead, it was going to be a hollow victory.

"Launching remote ship." Washu brought the command functions up for the last ship, knowing that if anything happened to it while in mid-flight, she would need to adjust everything here.

They watched as the engines ignited on the ship, wheeling out on its own power from the launching bay. Automated machinery sensing that the strip was now vacant cycled upward as a second ship was brought onto the runway. The machinery was working so far, but the system was old and who knew when it was going to break down.

The remote ship traveled down the runway and all systems appeared green as the pre programmed flight system worked to perfection, lifting the first of a third of survivors up into the air and out toward what was left of the ionosphere.

"First ship is away, no problems detected." Washu was running a diagnostic on the ship to make sure everything was all right as Ryoko began her launching procedures when Ryoko came back over the communications unit.

"Life sings detected, 25 keltal and closing at 2 keltal a minute." Washu's head came up and checked her instruments. There was something coming in, just breaking the maximum range they had on the ground. They couldn't use the full power of the systems planetside for risk of burning out something with all the things that could be detected.

"Continue with your launch procedures, I'll pick them up." Washu called as she finished the last of the checks and began to monitor Ryoko's ship.

Once again, engines flared to life as the ship moved free of its moorings and taxied to the launching pad. Motors once again hummed to life as their ship was cycled up into the launch ready position and Washu watched out the forward monitor as Ryoko's ship rolled forward, already moving to lift off. It was only a few seconds wait as a small light came from the woods heading toward them, and it was carrying two people with it.

She waited for the last moment till they were alongside the ship, cycling the air lock for them to enter before Washu began her own launching procedure. Engines flared up to full power and brake released as she directed the ship for the open end of the hangar, only to hear the sound every engineer dreads. Alarms began going off as the sound of metal twisting under duress echoed up and down the ship. She hit the emergency shut off on the engines and began looking for anything on the ship that went wrong.

Within moments, she found what had happened. One of the locking clamps that kept the ships in position while in the bay hadn't released when they had been placed into position for taxi. Now it was bent out of shape and on a bind that would prevent it from releasing on its own. Washu brought up the air lock and keyed the comm. "We have a problem, gentlemen." Washu was being as calm as she could be, but she was feeling rattled by all this bad luck.

"We heard it, what happened?" The voice of Joshaldan came back to her, so she brought them up to speed as fast as she could.

"We need to remove that harness, not cut it free to hang but totally remove without hurting the ship anymore. The weight from it would never allow us to break orbit." Washu was already overriding the airlock timer as she keyed it to reopen back outside.

"I will need the big one's help." Joshaldan sounded a bit miffed by the admittance. "I am skilled in the power, but not in fine control. He will have to aid me."

"I can do it myself, just get me up there." Jason's voice came over the comm in an assured manner and Washu did a quick check outside.

"There's barely enough air out there to keep you conscious. Hurry up and get done quickly." Washu keyed the open function remotely and watched on the cameras outside the ship as Jason and Joshaldan lifted outside of the lock. Sealing the door and force opening the door, she yelled back down the path to the seats that someone should get the wind priestess and strap her in.

She turned back to look at her controls when Ryoko came back over the comm. "Orbit established. Awaiting your arrival."

"Denied, take command via remote and get away from the planet now." Washu glanced at the two people outside the ship and prepared to engage the engines.

A violent tremor shook through the area and the ground began to crack ominously. Signs of thermal heat was beginning to spike all around them on the sensors and Washu prayed it would be another few minutes before any magma came up around them.

"I am not leaving you down there by yourselves." Ryoko had turned her ship around and was making for a return to the planet.

"Think about your position for a moment." Washu was trying to talk some sense to her. "You're in a ship full of people looking for someplace to begin their lives anew and you're going to put not only yourself at risk, but the lives of everyone on board for one person."

Ryoko wasn't speaking, but the direction of her ship hadn't changed either.

"Listen to your mother for once in your life! You're going to get yourself killed!" Washu had too many things going on around her and this was the least of her troubles at the moment.

Metal went careening off the doorways ahead of her and Washu brought her face up long enough to see that the clasp had been broken free and the metal at least temporarily bent back down where it could be fixed later. Starting the launch sequence back up, Washu began to check everything in a final go through before they got off the ground, praying that nothing else would go wrong.

Tremors began to increase in the area as seismic disturbances began to amplify all around them. The planet was shaking itself to pieces around her ship and they were out of time. She didn't wait for the ship to turn into position but powered it through the turn as she pushed the throttle to the full extent of its thrust. People back in the corridor were praying to the spirits to save them from death and Washu wished she could put her faith in something so meaningless and still be comforted by such thoughts.

As her ship left the ground, the earth broke underneath them, caving downward into the molten blood of the planet as it strived to be free of its bonds like the ship was to the ground. "Ryoko," Washu radioed back to her daughter, now that the worst was over, "We have successfully launched and are on our way to meet you. Prepare to leave orbit."

* * *

"Masaki, what should we do with these two?" Talan stood before Ayeka and Shaela as Masaki walked back over to them from the side of the room.

"Kill them." Masaki curtly spoke and weapons leveled at the two girls.

"What the hell? Don't we even have a say in the matter?" Shaela gestured with her gauntlet, looking angrily at the lead Juridian.

"You are tainted by The Armor," Masaki spoke briskly about her decision, "Worse, you are bound to The Possessor. Eventually, The Armor may find a way to pass itself off onto one or both of you. We cannot allow that to happen."

"So be it." Ayeka said and looked complacent as she was prepared to accept her fate.

"So be it?!" Shaela couldn't believe the way Ayeka was acting. "Have you lost it? They're talking about killing us."

"I will not allow you to commit this travesty, Masaki." Talan stepped forward, looking defiant at Masaki.

"Travesty?" Masaki couldn't believe what she was hearing either. "And what travesty am I about to do, Talan?"

"Fratricide." Talan wasn't sure this was going to work, but there had been enough deaths today.

"It would be Fratricide if she was my daughter, but she is not." Masaki turned cold eyes on Ayeka who still held her eyes downcast to the floor.

"Never the less, she is blood, whether you admit it or not." Talan was challenging her, she was sure of it, but she would not rise to the challenge.

"Very well, Talan, I will not order their death," Masaki walked past him, heading for the doorway. "We will take them back to Jurai with us and let the council decide their fate."

One by one, the Juridians gave up their power back to its mysterious origins, returning back to their true forms. They wouldn't look at Ayeka, for she was as dead to them as their lost warriors. Shaela stared hard at each one that dared to think about coming too close. Talan watched each go before turning to leave himself.

"Talan." Ayeka spoke for the first time since turning her eyes downward. "You will be punished for allowing us to live."

"That is for the council to decide." Talan sounded tired, worn out in both body and soul. "We who have lost much in the days since we arrived have no right to make rash decisions while our emotions run high." Shaking his head, he continued. "Masaki has lost not only her husband, but her children as well, for Sasami couldn't survive the death of a planet. Even if she managed to escape, she would be considered tainted as well."

"Why, Talan?" Ayeka raised her eyes to look at the encased manifestation of Darkness. "Why did you save us?"

"I saved you because I think that Jurai and its practices are wrong." The words came bitterly to his mouth as he spoke. "I have survived the Hunt 7 times now. I will never be allowed to Hunt again because of that. With each Hunt, I have become more and more sure that what Jurai has done is not save everyone, but doom us all to a time when even we cannot stop The Armor. It will come to that, or Tokimi's Wrath."

Talan turned around to look at Ayeka. "That boy showed me something that I had never thought I would see from a Possessor. He could have kept you close and killed you as he changed, you did not want to kill him."

Talan looked past both women to the crystallized pillar and the creature within. "He was able to defy the base power that The Armor commanded him to do. At least, I believe he defied it. It gives me something I have not felt in a long time." Talan turned and walked away into the ship's interior, not elaborating what it was he felt.

"Great, they left us here like we're not even worth bothering with." Shaela was making a flame dance from one finger to the next in agitation. "And that Masaki, who the hell does she think she is?"

"At this moment in time, she is the leader of The Hunters." Ayeka sighed and looked to Shaela. "We are ghosts to everyone because we chose to bind out minds to him."

"Speaking of which, what happened to us down there?" Shaela rubbed her arms briskly as if she had felt a sudden chill. "I remember feeling a great swell of spirit, and being in tune with everything at once, but I also remember a screaming person."

"When he touched The Armor, we touched the vast power behind The Armor." Shaela gave her a slightly confused look. "Think of it like touching the back half of lightning as it passes. Most of the destructive force passes you by, but there's still a vast amount of power left in it."

"So it's like the dying embers of a fire," Shaela was trying to picture it in ways she would understand, "Not much by themselves, but they still contain the spark of fire to make something bigger."

Ayeka wasn't exactly sure she was making any sense with the analogy that Shaela came up with so she decided to show her. Ayeka reached into the core of her being, to where the Light could be summoned from and held it in her mind, letting it go outward from her. The flame that Shaela was playing with changed colors as the effects of Ayeka's power washed over her bond. The bright red light with flickering orange mixed in brightened to nearly all white, and a sense of calm came over her once more. The feel of the ship was very definite again as all of the elements began to whisper to her once more.

Ayeka watched Shaela for a moment, and then abruptly cut off her connection to the source as a sound like a struck bell began to vibrate in her mind. Her vision swam and her legs buckled as the feel of vertigo washed over her. Shaela caught her before she fell, helping her to keep her balance.

"Are you OK?" Shaela walked her over to the doorway leading into the ship and helped her sit down against the wall.

"Yes, I'm quite alright." She wasn't totally all right as she felt into herself. The Light had been struck by something, and had reverberated with the force of that strike. What had struck at her like that?

Shaela sat down next to her, staring at the encased prisoner with a sad gaze. "You know, I never thought things would turn out the way they have so far." Ayeka turned to look at Shaela, who chuckled softly. "Ever since he came to Mt. Muldoon things began going awry. The Bugrom was going to win no matter what we did. Miz was dying, something of which I thought would never happen. I even put up with a man, of all things."

She gave a nervous chuckle, then swallowed and continued. "Now I'm on a Juridian ship, accused of being something worse than evil, and all because of him. The only part that boggles me is that I still can't come to hate him."

Ayeka placed her hand on Shaela's shoulder. "I'm sure that he hates himself for what has happened."

Shaela nodded as she bit her lip, obviously holding back tears. "He'll be O.K., won't he?"

"Better off than us." Ayeka assured her and got to her feet slowly. "Come on, I'll show you where my room is at, then we have to lock in for the trip. Hyperspace is not something to be experienced outside of a stasis tube."

* * *

Ayeka and Shaela came out in the sunlight and Caira brought her hand up before her face. The sun was shining brightly and the sounds of music floated upward from the village below as the people celebrated their new found chance at life. Colors and dancing could be seen as the people moved back and forth between the houses, sharing their food and gifts to everyone in what would be something to remember for years to come.

"This is what we tried to help create, a place where people could be happy and not worry about the greater things that are out their beyond their knowledge." Ayeka smiled as she looked down at the people below, Kalesh coming up on the other side of her.

"This is what you all fought for." He spoke reverently, though with a look of sadness in his eyes.

"It'll be better once we go and get Tom back." Shaela spoke firmly with a slight nod on the end of her words.

"He's still alive?" Caira asked as she looked between Ayeka and Shaela.

"Oh yes," Ayeka said as she frowned and looked skyward, "He's very much alive, and he's awake again."

"Enough." Kalesh said as he looked to the ladies. "For now, we celebrate, tomorrow, we plan."

Caira sniffed. "You do not understand a woman's heart."

"Your right," Kalesh said with a grin, "and I never will."

Caira went ahead of the women after Ayeka and Shaela both said that they would catch up to her. They watched her until she was out of hearing and turned to him. "You have a good ward, Schtarubal."

The old man inclined his head slightly. "That is a name I haven't heard in a very long time."

"Hey, old man, if we couldn't tell who you are, then no one could." Shaela smiled at him and patted his shoulder. "She'll be a great princess one day."

"She'll be what she wants to be, but she'll be a learned child by the time I am done with her." He harrumphed greatly then turned an eye after Caira. "She does look a bit like Rune, doesn't she?"

"All except for the hair, though I remember Rune to be a bit more open minded than that." Shaela said as she also turned her eyes to Caira's fading form.

"You mentioned that he is awake." Schtarubal changed subjects back to what was important.

Ayeka nodded slowly. "He is, and yet is not, awake." She again turned her eyes to the sky to where his mind seemed to be. "He is in a half dream, his body wanting to wake up but something forcing him to sleep."

"We think that he is calling for us." Shaela said as her eyes also looked upward. "It's as if he is trying to tell us something, cause he keeps repeating something." Shaela shook her head as if trying to get the noise out.

"Will Washu take you there?" Schtarubal seemed to have guessed who had brought them here though they didn't deny that the scientist didn't have a hand in their arrival.

"We'll be going to Jurai, to the place of sealing." Ayeka seemed to focus again as she looked back down at the festivities. "We will get back what belongs to us."

"You still think of yourself as married to him, don't you?" Shaela said as she looked over at Ayeka.

"I will be married to him soon enough, that you can be assured of." Ayeka looked smugly over at Shaela. "You'll be married to him as well before you know it."

"Not likely. I don't care what your people's laws say about Harva Shalooth." Schtarubal had heard about the Juridian Marriage called Harva Shalooth, a custom that was as old as Light and Darkness. It was said that Harva Shalooth was to ensure balance between the three married, one being the aspect of confrontation and the other being the aspect of acceptance.

"Well, in any event, that is something that we cannot do today. Let us make memories now while we can." Ayeka said as she started to walk down the hill toward the town.

"No way am I going to marry him, do you hear me Ayeka?" Shaela called after the Juridian then began following behind her.

Schtarubal held his smile for all of about five seconds before he let it slip from his face. Kagato had told him that they would come to his house, though how he had known that was still not known, but he was but a servant and such things were not for him to know anyways. He had been granted anything he had desired as oath that he would swear fealty to the dark lady, and now it had come time to make due on his promise. He wondered what the princess would think of him for this betrayal, deciding that he would find out when the time came for her rebirth.

* * *

**Yes, I had mentioned that this would be a tying up of some ends at the top before the beginning of this chapter. This isn't the last chapter, so there has to be some loose ends, for (put figurative religious God-Like persona here) sake. Bet you guys didn't see that one coming though, did you? Kalesh was actually Schtarubal and working for Tokimi. I am such a dog.**

**somewhere in the audience is heard the comment that he's actually a biscuit**

**It was a figure of speech, jeez... Anyways, the final chapter is coming up next and soon, as soon as I heavily edit that mutilated chapter, I am so disappointed in writing it. The epilogue is stand alone and I approve whole heartedly of its feel, but The Beginning of Fate needs to be guided properly, or its so much crap.**

**same person who commented about being a biscuit asks how it can be fate if the author is guiding the story**

**Author is staring off into the audience I Hate You...**


	21. Chapter Twenty

**Well Folks, I can't say it was pleasant, cause it wasn't. Chapter Twenty is here, and soon to be added is the final Chapter, the Epilogue to the story. People are not going to be happy about this, but the one thing everyone will be happy about is that it is shorter than the previous chapters by a whole page. Now that a few things were edited and added, I feel loads better about this.**

**Disclaimer: I never did get around to owning ElHazard or Tenchi series references that are remarked upon in this story, maybe if I wasn't so lazy...

* * *

**

**Chapter 20**

**The Beginning of Fate**

The fair was everything the adults had said it was going to be and then some. Food was given to every passerby of nearly every house, the smell of sweets and candy that was rarely made for even good little boys and girls. Colorful ribbons and clothing adorned the people as they danced to the music of wooden pipes and stringed instruments. Happiness could be heard and felt from everyone in the town, and Caira could not remember when it was that she had seen every face smiling in bliss as they were now.

She had been roaming around the village for some time now, talking with the few friends that she had. All of them seemed to want to know just how bad it was for her out there in the woods with the old man and what were the things he had threatened her with. Although she could not bring herself to like the old man, but she did defend him to the few people who doubted her. From what she could tell was that the old man hadn't arrived from the hillside where the woods met the village.

Ayeka and Shaela were seen many times, and even a few people called them by name and talked with them for a time. Apparently, these people had known them for some time for there was a heart felt hug by one woman to Shaela and an offer for tea. Caira wondered as to how well known they were, but she wasn't about to waste her day wondering about such things.

The sun came and went bringing with it a large blazing fire once the sun had gone down. Many of the people were still dancing and laughing around the fire while men passed around alcohol and women gossiped. Some of the children had already worn themselves out after the days long festivities and lay nestled in the laps of many a person. The mayor stood up and raised his hands to get everyone's attentions.

"It has been nearly a full year since our journey from Krinas, may it forever live in our hearts." The mayor intoned many of the people repeating the last part of his sentence. "We, the survivors, will be strong in bringing back to life our pride and our entire heritage."

Caira listened to him, looking at Ayeka and Shaela curiously for answers to what the mayor was going on about.

"Tonight, we dance something that has not been danced since we slept behind the walls of Floreshtica." At this, many of the women rose off the ground and stepped forward as the music makers prepared to play. "Tonight, we dance for Hryed Mah Alousch, for our lives are thanks to him."

Drums and bells, cymbals and crudely made tambourines appeared from the music makers and with a nod from the mayor, the music began. Caira had never seen anything like this before as she watched the women all stepped nearly as one toward the fire and the music began. It was an old music, something that they had never played before, and yet it stirred something in her from her history, her ancestry as she watched Shaela and the other women begin to move in a way that caught the eye of all the onlookers.

They raised their arms over their heads as if begging the sky for something they could only know, then brought their hands down slowly as a slow cadence thrummed from the small drum like tools. Their bodies moved slowly, yet seductively as they again took a step toward the fire and they spun on their feet slow and lithe like. Turning in time to the music, the soft lilt of the wooden instruments began to add their own accompaniment, though it was nothing like music she had heard. This sound made the sound of the drums all the more prominent.

Shaela was becoming something that was unearthly as she moved. Caira watched as she moved her body in different ways in time with the women, and it was something that beauty couldn't describe to her. The music pulsed in her veins and her sight became misty as she became slowly enraptured with the sounds going on around her. The women moved off slowly to the men around the fire, some dancing for their husbands, the others dancing around their boy friends. Shaela stayed dancing to the music by the fire moving to her own desire and motion as her body glided of its own accord.

A man walked up beside her, she had never seen this man before, but the presence of him was only noticeable by the lack of sound he made as he passed her. He was tall, with brown hair and a slow gait as he stepped though he was only looking at one person as he passed. His clothing was all black, which didn't fit right with all the color around them, yet it seemed to suit him in a way that she couldn't determine. He approached Shaela slowly moving in counter rhythm to the music as if he was the completion to the sound around them and Shaela stepped forward toward him as if waiting for him.

He moved around her slowly, placing his hand out for hers, yet walked slowly around her as she spun in the opposite direction. They seemed to not pay attention to anyone else around them as they danced, his body moving with hers, though not opposed to her as what the feel of him was like. She held her arms out to either side of herself and tilted her head to one side as he came around to her back and he stepped in close to her, molding his body to hers in something that was nearly indecent. The music was coming to a head and Shaela's eyes were closed as she stepped back once and he stepped with her. Then she stepped back once more and he stepped into the fire.

"No!" Caira shouted and the man disappeared abruptly as she realized the music around her had stopped. She was on her feet, sweating badly, as everyone seemed to stare at her.

"Caira, you shouldn't interrupt the dance." Ayeka had taken hold of her hand then looked at her concerned. "Something is wrong with you, you're bewildered as if you've been scared badly."

"There…" Caira wasn't sure she had seen it now that she was calming down. "There was a man dancing with Shaela. A man dressed in black."

Nearly all the adults drew a breath in shock. Shaela and the mayor came over to her and knelt before her. "Describe him please, Caira." The mayor looked like he was intent, almost fanatically driven while Ayeka and Shaela looked concerned at her.

"You…You didn't see him?" Caira asked confused as she looked into their faces.

"Please, Caira, this is important for us." Shaela spoke calmly, though her heart was in her throat.

"I saw a man, though he was no one I had ever seen before." Caira was trying to remember as best as she could. "His hair was brown and he wore all black. I thought it was weird that he didn't have any color on his clothing, but it seemed all right on him."

"Anything else?" The mayor asked as he held down his thoughts.

"He was dancing around Shaela slowly, like they were as one." Shaela looked at Ayeka, who was shaking her head. "He moved around her and as she stepped back before I shouted, he stepped into the fire and disappeared."

"Was there anything else that you could tell us about him, maybe not what he looked like but your impression on him." Ayeka wasn't sure if her hopes were enough for what the child was saying, but she wondered none the less.

"Yes, there was one other thing I found strange about him." Caira shivered as she thought about it again. "He was quiet, like a shadow. He didn't even seem to be breathing as he passed me, but it was the lack of sound that made me notice him. He moved like he didn't want to be heard."

The mayor's eyes relaxed slightly and he muttered barely audibly "Hryed Mah Alousch."

"'Fated to Die for Eternity'? The man in Kalesh's story?" Caira was confused, she had seen he who was The Possessor?

"It could only be him. He was quiet as a thalion when he wanted to be, and he never gave the impression that he belonged." The mayor stood and turned to everyone, speaking in a hand motion that the adults picked up and understood. They began gathering their children together, the festivities clearly over.

"I didn't mean to scream." Caira thought she had done something terrible, though the pat on her hand from Ayeka was trying to soothe her.

"Why didn't we sense him, Ayeka?" Shaela was slightly confused as she looked from the girl to Ayeka.

"For us, he wasn't really here." Ayeka was thinking this through slowly, putting the pieces together as she assumed it could be. "Somehow, Caira is seeing something that we can't see ourselves."

"Is she connected to The Armor then?" The mayor was asking Ayeka, who was shaking her head before he had spoken.

"She isn't more than 15 by the look of her, so I'd say that she should remember Krinas. Still, she seems not to remember anything of it or of The Armor if Schtarubal is telling the truth." Ayeka was deep thinking, not really realizing what she had just said.

"What did you say?" The mayor sounded aghast, shocked beyond anything Caira had seen before.

Shaela and Ayeka looked back at the mayor. "You did know that Schtarubal was Kalesh, didn't you?"

"That's impossible." The mayor pointed toward the outskirts of the town. "Schtarubal never survived the space travel. He should be buried on the outskirts of town."

Caira didn't understand what they were saying. Kalesh wasn't who he said he was? If he was the chancellor of the lost princess from Kalesh's story, then who was Kalesh? Ayeka and Shaela began running out toward the woods, throwing a hastily shouted "Protect Caira!" behind them as they sped for the woods. Something was definitely wrong, and Caira was worried for the two women.

* * *

The house when they returned was no longer whole, but rotting apart under its own weight. The ground was choking on weeds and the water was polluted and stagnant with all kinds of rot and filth. The signs of death were everywhere; this was the hand of Tokimi at work. Ayeka had donned her Armor some time ago as they ran back here to this spot, and now they prepared for a fight that would be deadly.

There was a moment of vertigo that swept over them as the house reconstructed itself as before, the light of the fireplace illuminated in the windows of the house before Ayeka forced the image from her. The sound of breaking glass seemed to spring loudly to both hers and Shaela's ears as the illusion fell away.

"What just happened?" Shaela said as the feeling of rememberance seemed to fade away more and more from her, the land around the house no longer holding anything fond about it.

"One of Tokimi's tricks." Ayeka said as she gazed around the area, looking for the old man who had called himself 'Kalesh'. "Come out, Servant of Tokimi!" Ayeka shouted a challenge. "We know what you are now!"

Shadows squealed and danced where no light could reach. They moved, sentient life given a bodiless form as they gathered together to form the old man that he had once been. He walked toward them off the stagnant pond, many years younger than what he had looked before, and obviously not alive from the cast of his skin.

"I see you have figured out what I have become." Schtarubal didn't try to deny the fact that he was a servant, nor did he look pleased by his discovery.

"Why of all people did you choose to side with Tokimi?" Shaela had donned her gauntlet and had summoned up a flame in her protected hand, eyeing the old man as she stepped to the side of Ayeka.

"I was offered the opportunity to see my princess again if I were to loyally serve The Dark Lady." Schtarubal talked slowly, sadly, but with an underlying conviction. "My duty is to Princess Rune and the house of Pronelius. I am a loyal retainer and I will protect my princess even in death."

"See her again?" Shaela asked Schtarubal, who seemed to become more menacing than she had ever thought the stodgy old man could be.

"During the first Juridian attack on our encampment, Princess Rune disappeared, never to be seen again." Sctarubal spoke as if he was narrating a story to them, this time being harsh with his speech as he spoke. "When I died, I was resurrected by Tokimi and told that if I wanted to ever see my Princess again, I was to come here and play the part of an old beggar from the woods."

Schtarubal moved forward as if flying low to the ground, intent on the only person he thought dangerous, Ayeka. Ayeka was prepared for such a move already bringing a shield of light into existence before her. Shaela moved off to Ayeka's left, creating a very large fireball in her hand as she went. Schtarubal tried to assault the shield with his hand, punching the surface fiercely with his right. From his hand came a black substance that crawled across the surface of the shield, searching for a break in the shield so that it could go around it from some weakness.

"Better to come back from the grave and be of use to my Liege in death than to be a corpse and buried." The substance crawled further along the gleaming light shield, rushing to reach Ayeka behind it.

Shaela gripped hard and slung at Schtarubal, watching as the fireball engulfed him in a blaze of incandescence. Schtarubal gasped at the sudden heat and glared at Shaela, but the searching membrane of darkness not slowing or stopping as it creeped ever onward, finding at last an edge. Schtarubal's face was a twisted macabre of the man he had once been and Ayeka could only pity him as she turned her shield into a coat of barbs. The sudden change of defensive to offensive caught Schtarubal off guard as smooth became sharp and his body became pierced from the front.

He looked shocked but the darkness hadn't stopped with his body being stabbed several times by the protrusions from Ayeka's shield. The darkness was moving downward to her and she held not fear as they came nearly close enough to touch her. Schtarubal looked pleased beyond belief that he was about to win only to feel another stabbing, this time from behind. The darkness that had reached around the shield stopped as all of it screamed in pain, even the thing that Schtarubal had become screamed as well.

Shaela had come up from behind him and by tapping into her bond with Tom, had summoned from him a piece of the darkness that was bound to him. Channeling the power through her glove, she had created from the palm a short blade made of the same material that Tom's Armor was made from. Schtarubal was in pain from the short blade being plunged into his back and the darkness from his body was disappearing into nothingness.

"I should have known that it was strange for anyone else but me and Shaela to know about the bond, and Tom would have never told you." Ayeka rolled him off of her shield as she stood overtop the hurting form of Schtarubal. "You had never really talked to him, except when he was in the princess's presence."

"It's true," Schtarubal was holding a hand to his ribs where the blade would have passed had it pierced him from front to back. "I have never spoken with him about anything that had happened to him."

"Then how did you know all of that? Or was it all a lie?" Shaela demanded from him as she created black claws from the bond that she had with Tom.

"He is bound to Tokimi through The Armor of Darkness." Schtarubal gasped softly as he swallowed. "As long as he possesses The Armor, Tokimi will always be with him."

"You talk too much, old fool." A cold and sinister voice called from the lake, making all look to the water.

From the murky depths rose a nightmare of pale skin and gray robes. His hair and skin were unaffected by the waters surface or even its depths as he arose dry and unhindered from the water. He came to a stop a few inches above the surface as he glared through his pince-nez at the cowering form of the old man. The glare of accusation could be felt by all from the green haze that washed off from his eyes.

"Kagato." Shaela spat at the ground.

"Messenger of Tokimi…" Ayeka felt cold to her soul as she watched something beyond the whirlwind of life step back into the rapid and was unaffected.

"My lord…" Schtarubal stammered, "I was waiting for you." Kagato said nothing as he watched all three of them so Schtarubal continued. "The child is here, My Lord. She is beginning to see the signs of 'Him' awaking from his sleep. We must…"

Kagato's eyes shined brighter with a hidden emotion and Schtarubal's mouth clicked shut in terror.

"How have you managed to come back, Kagato?" Shaela demanded as she created another flame ball in her hand, this time with a dark core to it. "We saw you die in the skies above Krinas."

"I was resurrected much the same way as that fool there was." Kagato didn't raise his eyes from the crouching form of Schtarubal as he spoke, and his voice was light compared to the look he was giving. "My Lady Tokimi is the embodiment of death and negative forces. For her to resurrect a person is not beyond her grasp."

"Forgive me, My Lord." Schtarubal was groveling now, a broken wretch who was begging for a stay of execution. "Forgive my failure…"

"I am not the one you should be begging for forgiveness." Kagato looked down through his pince-nez at Schtarubal with an unclear look on his face. "You were given the same attributes as that human sealed away by the Juridians and yet you were still unable to defeat two people."

Schtarubal's head dropped. "I have no words to express my shame."

"You had best think of some," Kagato pointed his spread hand at Schtarubal, "Tokimi awaits."

"No!" Schtarubal was able to say before his body became alight with green energies, as his form was ripped asunder. Only a charred spot where he had stood remained of the old man.

"You have a lot to answer for, Kagato." Shaela was summoning another orb of fire with a black core to it. The control of the mixing of the two powers creating a sheen of sweat on her face.

"You think you two can stop me when even your friend had a difficult time of it." Kagato grinned maniacally. "Remember, if you will, it took an entire planet to destroy me and you think you can even compare to my power?"

Ayeka's weapon of choice, a staff of blinding light with a crystallized blade formed in her hands as she prepared to fight. Shaela had separated the fireball into two smaller ones, spreading the black flames across her hands as she prepared to fight in her own fashion. They stood apart from one another, making it doubly hard on their opponent if they were to choose to go after one or the other.

Kagato's eyes began to glaze over with a greenish light and the semblance of his power began to gather in his hand when his face contorted in pain and he went ridged with shock. A rictus of pain passed over his face and the color drained from his skin as he released his grip on the power he possessed. "It would seem as if you have gained a reprieve today, ladies." Kagato didn't even sound in pain after what had happened to him, whatever it had been.

Glaring at the women in hatred, he began to fade away. "Mark my words, ladies. Only a very select few have ever seen me like that. Not many get the chance to live afterwards."

Kagato's words echoed in the air after his disappearance, the sound of a threat plain as day to them. Not exactly believing that he had left, it was awhile before they left the forlorn area they had stayed at. Visiting the dead was natural, staying among them was only for those who had died.

* * *

The morning sun had risen in the sky above, filling the sky with its brilliance and warmth. In the small mayor's hut, hearts hung heavily and questions were being asked to no avail.

"I still don't understand why Schtarubal would want to be resurrected?" The mayor shook his head as he sat at the table, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared into the wooden table for answers.

"He was doing it for Rune, that's obvious enough." Shaela leaned against the fireplace in the nearest wall, a small pot of water overtop the flames issuing a little steam from it as it warmed. "He was a retainer for the house of Pronelius, and for retainers, their liege and lords come before even their own lives."

"Which means one of two things." Ayeka was standing near the only windowsill in the room, looking outside occasionally. "Either he believed Rune to be dead, or in the possession of Tokimi, which is as good as dead."

"Then why have any interest in Caira?" The mayor looked up and stared from one woman to another. "She had nothing to do with The Armor and with Mah Alousch."

"Which brings up another question." Ayeka turned from the window and looked toward the mayor. "What is Caira and why does she think she saw Tom at the celebration last night?"

"Think?" Shaela looked to Ayeka. "You mean that you doubt she saw Tom at all?"

"That's a very good possibility." Ayeka said as she looked back outside. "It is very possible that all this was done so that she could get close to us and destroy all of us from the inside, as it were. Why tell your pawns your true objectives when they are soon to be removed from play?"

"At least one of you is thinking." An authoritative voice called from the kitchen as a short red headed woman walked from it.

"Speak of the devil and thus she appears." Shaela came off with an earth one liner to Ayeka's comment, which earned her an annoyed look from Ayeka. It seemed Shaela was picking up more and more bad habits from her connection with Tom.

"Welcome back, lady Washu." The mayor stood up and offered her his seat, which she declined politely.

"You know I hate formality, Nazak." Washu simply smiled where she stood, age being denied the right to place its touch on the diminutive scientist. "I see you two managed to get away from the punishment of Jurai." She had turned her gaze from the mayor and was now looking at Shaela and Ayeka.

"They pursued for a long time, but in the end, they simply gave up." Ayeka said with an inclined gesture, which earned her a snort from Shaela.

"More like something more important than us came up and they had better things to do." Shaela said as she looked over to the red headed scientist, ignoring the glare from Ayeka. "So, what brings you here from your scientific duties?"

"Nazak called me." She glanced to the mayor, who nodded. "He said there was something I should see for myself."

"Come with me, everyone." He began moving to the back of the house, where the sleeping quarters were kept. "Since last night, Caira has kept herself locked in her room. I had the spare key and opened it this morning to see if she was all right, and I got quite a shock."

The door he stopped at had pierced marks all the way through the door so that someone could clearly see inside, if the windows didn't have such thick drapes hanging on them to prevent light from entering. The holes however looked to have been someone's hand, though a rather small hand had tried to reach through the door after something.

"You may need to activate your power, lady Ayeka. She is…upset." Nazak spoke as he keyed the lock once more and opened the door to a scene of carnage.

The bed had been ripped apart lengthwise, feathers were spread all over the room and the few small furnishings had been smashed to kindling by a very strong foe. Claws marks were everywhere in the room, and a few scorches from what looked to be some small fire gave the impression that someone had been very upset or not careful. There was no sign of Caira anywhere in the room, though the feeling of someone watching them was quite evident.

Ayeka's Armor lit the room with a cold light as they looked around, the windowpane underneath the curtains unbroken and still locked from the inside. There were no footprints or signs of a fight, nor had there been any kind of sounds coming from this room last night.

"What in nature's name happened in here?" Shaela said as she fingered the tear along the bed.

"Shaela." Ayeka was looking around the room slowly, her hair standing on end. "He's here."

Shaela and the rest turned to Ayeka. "He can't be here, he's still imprisoned on Jurai."

"This feel can only be one thing." Ayeka rubbed her arms softly; the feel of filth was all over the place. "The Armor has been here in this room."

Something moved in the rafters above Ayeka, Shaela had only caught a glance but she was sure she had seen something. It moved again, only this time it came down at Ayeka from above, a falling shadow of death. Ayeka didn't move from where she stood, but she felt the thought from Shaela and reacted by instinct. A pale ball of luminescence surrounded the falling attacker, capturing it inside where it could do no harm to anyone. The sounds of rage and frustration came out from it as it futilely attacked its surroundings, though there was nothing it could do to break free.

"Any guesses as to what it is that is attacking us?" Washu asked as she brought to life the small computer that never seemed to leave her side for even a moment, but no one was taking the challenge. It was all too obvious who could be inside the orb.

The noises died down to a soft sobbing and Ayeka dispelled the shielding she had erected around Caira. Caira was kneeling on the ground, hands to her eyes as she cried bitterly. A dark shadow pulsed and writhed on her body like a living creature, it moved to its own breathing and shifting on her as if looking for some place to go.

"What has happened to me?" Caira wept as she tried to talk. "What kind of thing have I become?"

Washu was typing furiously on her computer while Ayeka knelt down next to the frightened girl. "We're not sure how it has happened, Caira. All we can tell you is that we will try to find a way to cure you."

"The Armor of Hryed Mah Alousch." Nazak looked stunned. "Does this mean…?"

"No." Shaela said as she stepped forward toward Caira. "He's not dead, so this must be some creation of Tokimi to make us believe that she has gained possession of it."

Washu typed a few more lines on her computer before she spoke. "I'm afraid this is no trick. That is The Armor of Darkness."

"That's impossible, Washu. There is only one Possessor, and right now Tom is the only one who is cursed with that fate." Ayeka turned around and looked at the scientist.

"Impossible or not, the energy signature of what is on her is The Armor's energy signature." Washu looked on at Caira with curiosity mixed with pity. "For whatever reason, she is another Possessor."

"There's something else, isn't there?" Caira looked at Washu through her rapidly drying eyes. "There's something you haven't told us."

Washu looked as if she was going to deny it, but she sighed and nodded quickly. "My tests are inconclusive by the duration and timespan, plus whatever changes have occurred because of the contact. However, my testing isn't done so the results shouldn't be held as fact."

"Washu, your rambling." Shaela looked at her with a gaze that told her to get her act together.

She unconsciously smoothed her clothes, looked at everyone, and then smoothed her clothes again before she could speak her peace. "I'm not 100 clear on the results so what I'm about to say is or is not the truth." Everyone was getting impatient by their looks, so Washu blurted out her findings. "From what I have seen so far of Caira's genetic make-up, I have come to the conclusion that she possesses The Armor of Darkness because she is Tom's daughter."

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Kagato gritted his teeth or at least he thought he did. His body was being unraveled at a level so minute, scientists had trouble identifying it. His very creation was at the whim of Tokimi, and right now, she was upset. He had nearly done something that would have ruined Tokimi's plans for years to come, maybe centuries. He had nearly made a mistake, and mistakes were not tolerated.

The pain washed away and he found himself kneeling on nothingness, looking at the substance under his hands and knees that he imagined was there. His mind was already concocting things for him by habit, preventing his logic from overriding sense that there truly was nothing under foot. He stood weakly, wiping a trace of blood from the corner of his mouth as he came back to a respectable stance.

"You seem to need this lesson every few years, Kagato." Tokimi was as dead as the look of her body; an emaciated form wrapped in shadows today that stared out at him with hollowed out eyes.

"I am a fool who dreams of ambition, whether I am alive or dead." Kagato spoke his mind, although he kept a piece of it back, even from himself. Who knew if Tokimi could read his mind?

"Ambition is note worthy and shows a willingness to do what should not have to be ordered." Tokimi pointed a withered hand toward Kagato. "You dream of release from my servitude, but I refuse to give you peace. You are still useful."

"The will of Tokimi." Kagato said as he bowed to her and cursed her at the same time.

"All is now as I have ordained." Tokimi brought up a multiple set of systems in front of Kagato, systems that he personally had been sent to. "The power that Jurai had once boasted about has been cut out from underneath them one by one." Each galaxy faded away into darkness, leaving only one left. "It is time we moved against those who have been my foe since their birth."

"Your orders, My Lady?" Kagato expected the mass annihilation of the planet itself, but what Tokimi said next surprised him.

"I want you to go to Jurai, Kagato. Do not destroy their planet, for they will fight till there is no one left." Tokimi's eyes turned to one planet in particular and her hand clenched. "Break their soul, destroy who they are, make them throw away their precious light and salvation."

"What of the Armor, My Lady?" Kagato wondered if it was going to be possible to do what Tokimi ordered.

"The Armor will come to me when it is time." Tokimi faded into the darkness, disappearing from sight. "It would be better if they came for him. Then we could do something that the Juridians would never recover from."

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**And that's it, Basically the story is over unless you were looking for an Epilogue, which will be added. Yes, there are still a lot of questions unanswered, especially that twist I left hanging with Caira. For those of you who are not interested in reading the Epilogue, thank you for your patronage and at least reading the story for what it is. For those of you who want to see what I allude to next, I will have that up in a few days. T.T.F.N.**


	22. Epilogue

**Well, folks, this is it. The final Chapter to the Dream of Shadows storyline. It took some editing and a little rewriting, but I finally finished the darn thing. let's get the annoying out of the way...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own El Hazard or Tenchi series characters, places, or events that were used in this story. I did enjoy mangling everything to fit into the storyline of this piece of fiction...**

**No more character death, so that should make some happy. I have the feeling though that I will be answering questions for a bit about a lot of what was going on in the story.

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**Epilogue**

**The Ending to the Dream**

On the Planet Jurai, there is nothing but life and vegetation. There is peace with everyone and everything. There is no hatred, no hardship, and no pain. There is love and happiness anywhere that you would travel for as far as you could travel.

On Jurai, they take from the planet and give back as much as they take; always paying homage to the planet that raised them and cared for them. The trees whisper greetings to the people and the flowers dance to the rhythm of life. The waters laugh and the wind soars peacefully with no fetters and no taints or pollutants.

On Jurai, it is as close to Heaven as a living person could come to. That is, before he had possessed The Armor. Sealed away within the tree that had brought him, locked away for eternity and bound to the tree till time stopped, rested something that was not Jurai. The tree had been returned to the planet, had taken root, and had promptly died from the exposure or contact from The Armor. Or so it was speculated.

No one on planet Jurai knew his name, or cared what his name was. He was lost to darkness and was sealed away in what was known as 'the sealed lands'. Not even the elders went to make sure that he was bound still within the ship that had brought him, for anyone who would come near The Armor was to be outcast from Jurai. The land had become soiled by its contact, and nature changed.

The surrounding land died for 5 kilometers in every direction from the tree, becoming a dead zone where nothing would take root. The wind did not stir within this area, as if afraid that it would be noticed. The water stagnated, also unwilling to move far from where it was, even on a hill or slope. No living creature would willingly enter the area of death that had been brought from the depths of space.

Within the tree, if one were to venture so deep into death, you would feel the essence of something, or of someone. The tree having died so long ago would leave no trace of life inside its hallowed pathways, and yet there would still be the sense that you were being watched from the shadows by something malevolent. It would follow and persist; growing stronger the deeper one would venture into the depths of the tree.

Somewhere near the center there was reported to be an amber pillar made from the blood of the tree when it had been alive. Within this pillar is said to be the source of the darkness and death, the place where evil was made manifest and is told to the children now so that their courage is not tempted to enter within the dead zone.

This place is now used as a test for those who wish to be recognized by the circle of elders, the tree sitters. Two people have come today and have ventured with unfaltering steps to the center of the area where the pillar resides. The man who fears nothing studies the room with wonder, while the woman who stands next to him cringes in fear as a roiling feel of disease comes to her in wave after wave of sensation.

The man steps forward toward the pillar and the girl hesitates. She watches on in terror as something in her screams for her to flee and never return while her companion scrutinizes the pillar spoke of by the elders as something not of Jurai. A black sword pierces the side of the pillar, and the man without hesitation takes hold of the weapon.

It was an hour later that they found her. Although she was all of 27 years old, she looked as if she had aged till she was nearly ready to die, and her mind had been clearly broken by what she had seen. Her hair had turned the whitest of white, and her skin was pale and stricken. She babbled incessantly until they placed her in a dreamless sleep and traveled in her mind as they looked to see what she had seen.

The man had gone still after taking hold of the weapon, and then the weapon began to move as it covered the man inch by inch. The feel of his soul being suffocated and smothered by the darkness had been too much for her as she watched his body slowly being swallowed by the shadow. Once he had been covered from head to foot by the darkness, it all rushed inward toward the handgrip, taking everything into the weapon in a sickly motion.

Then the voice began from inside the amber, but it was like it was all around her. Echoing softly, roaring loudly, the voice was everywhere and everything all at once.

"I am Broken, and that is good…."

"I am cursed, and that is good…."

"I have become something that should not be…"

"I have loved and I will kill love…"

"If I did not exist, I would not have become something that should not be…"

"If I did not exist, they would not be in danger because of me…"

"If I did not exist, none of this would have ever happened…"

"If I did not exist…"

The elders sealed away her memory of what had happened and for the time being had been able to save her life. The seal though must have weakened, for they found her a day later hung from a tree limb by her own hand. The note that was scrawled in her blood had been found nearby with her eyes, which looked to have been the writing implements. She wrote that she could still see the darkness, and that she would not let it capture her in the end.

It was the first of its kind on Jurai and it brought fear to the people, a death brought on by one's own hand, but what brought greater fear was that the story had been told, a story that had been sworn to secrecy amongst the elders. The people knew what was in the tree now, and they feared.

On Jurai, there was hope and light and salvation, but now on Jurai, there was darkness and madness and death. On Jurai there was love and kindness, but now there was also hatred and deceit. On Jurai there was Life, and now there was Tom…

On Jurai…

**To Be Continued….

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Yes, the ending was pretty lame, but it's finally over, and I could care less...

I would like to thank MegaAuthor and Dragonwiles for their constant criticism of my work. bows before both of them They spent their time reading what was probably the worst possible written story on but they were merciful.

Thank you all for your patience in at least glancing over the story where at the time of this final posting, the story has had at least 300 hits on it. In so short of time, I am truly honored that you at least glanced at it before becoming too ill to read further.

I left the To Be Continued as is because I had begun to write a follow up to this story, however the genre would have to change, so it will no longer be in the El Hazard section, but will have to be placed in the Tenchi section. I don't think I'll post it though, as I am going to start from scratch on the second book and see what comes to mind. Questions about this story, please send me a message and I will answer to the best of my abilities. Questions or advise about the second book, I will listen to and take into consideration.

bows solemnly to everyone Thank you once again, and thank you for coming...

T.T.F.N.


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